This is the transcript of Restitutio episode 542: Read the Bible for Yourself 8: How to Read the Prophets by Sean Finnegan This transcript was auto-generated and only approximates the contents of this episode. 00:08 Hey there, I'm Sean Finnegan. And you are listening to Restitutio a podcast that seeks to recover authentic Christianity and live it out today. 00:24 The 17 books of the Prophets comprise 27% of the Old Testament, although some parts can be difficult to comprehend, they reveal the heart of God with raw pathos and brutal honesty. 00:40 To read the prophets then is to draw near to God. No other section of Scripture so beautifully and tragically reveals God's feelings. In this episode you'll learn about the major time periods, how to read the prophets within their context, and some of the major themes as always. 00:59 This brief survey should help you read and understand the Bible for yourself. Here now is Episode 542, part 9 of read the Bible for yourself, how to read the prophets. 01:20 The Old Testament contains 39 books in it. We've worked through the 1st 17 books of the Old Testament, which are the historical books, and we looked at the middle section, which are the poetic books, and now we're in the last 17 books of the Old Testament, which are called the prophets. 01:39 The prophets comprise 27% of the Old Testament. 01:44 As a whole. 01:46 The historical books are massive, just remember that. But these prophets are not small either. They're fairly large and so we have our five major prophets and then we have our 12 minor prophets the the five major prophets are 22% of the Old Testament and then the 12 minor prophets you might think are even longer. 02:06 But no, there's just only 5% of the Old Testament. So that's why they're called minor. The major prophetic books are Isaiah, Jeremiah, Lamentations, Ezekiel and Daniel. I just want to say one quick thing about lamentations. 02:23 It's not really a book of prophecy. It's you notice that it's not named for a prophet, it's the one that's not like the others. 02:31 It probably would fit better in the poetic portion of the Old Testament, which is from job through the song of Songs because. 02:40 The Book of Psalms actually contains lots of other laments and a book called Lamentations would fit well there, but it actually makes a lot of sense to put it right after Jeremiah because the lamentations in that. 02:53 The book are referring to events that happened just at the end of Jeremiah's life, so it it kind of goes with Jeremiah, but it's not really a book of prophecy. However, the people that made the table of contents for the Bible, what we call the Canon, did not ask my opinion. So this is just what they put together over the years. 03:14 Now, these other twelve books, Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi. We call them the minor prophet. 03:28 They're not minor in importance, they're just shorter. So that's why we call them the the minor prophets. 03:37 All 12 together are shorter than Isaiah. 03:41 Or Jeremiah or Ezekiel. So just to give you a perspective, now, if we look at them chronologically rather than canonically, what we'll see is that there are roughly 4 periods of time that prophets break into and you can see this E word everywhere on here. It's the word exo. 04:00 Now this is the great trauma of the Old Testament. The Babylonian Empire came and conquered Jerusalem and brought the people out of the city into exile for 70 years. 04:13 This is the great event upon which everything either points towards or away from. In the early days we have the early pre exilic prophets. As before the exile pre Exilic. 04:25 And then the late pre exilic prophets and we have many of them in that category. Right then we have the prophets who spoke during exile. Arguably Jeremiah, the end of his time was during exiles. He kind of spans both the pre exilic and the exilic. And then you have these post exilic prophets, Haggai, Zechariah and Malachi. 04:46 So. 04:47 This this might be a helpful way for you to break them up. As I mentioned, we were going through the historical books of the Old Testament. The prophetic books fit into the history of Israel. So when you start to read a prophetic book, you want to ask the question who's the king? 05:04 Because that's how they date things they don't use year numbers like we use year numbers, they say so and so had become king or in the 10th year or so, and so that will give you some bearings on it. Cause setting is important. Historical context is very helpful for the prophets. 05:22 Maybe you've had this experience. You read a book of the Prophets, or maybe a chapter and you're just like, what is this talk? 05:28 About. 05:30 Some of the prophecies are like that. They're they're confusing or you don't really know. Like, you know they're talking about something and they're passionate, but you're just not sure what what's really going on here. So the setting can be really helpful to figure out what's going on. 05:45 So what I'm going to do is use Jeremiah as an example throughout this teaching to illustrate how you can read the prophets on your own and to find some of these little bits of info. Jeremiah is great because he gives you lots of autobiographical information. 06:02 Some of the prophetic books don't give you hardly any historical information. It's just prophecy after prophecy after prophecy. And you're like, wow, this is pretty heavy. Whereas Jeremiah gives you lots of little tidbits from his life. So it's really helpful in that sense. And others do a little bit too. 06:19 Jeremiah 11 through three gives us the setup for the entire book. Jeremiah is a massive book, by the way. 06:24 51 chapters Jeremiah, 11, says the words of Jeremiah, the son of hilkiah, of the priests who were in anathoth in the land of Benjamin, to whom the word of the Lord came in the days of King Josiah, son of Aman of Judah in the 13th year of his reign. It came also in the days of King Jehoiakim. 06:47 Son of Josiah of Judah, until the end of the 11th year of King Zedekiah, son of Josiah of Judah, until the captivity of Jerusalem in the 5th month. That word captivity is the same idea as the word exile I was mentioning before. 07:01 So this is just solid gold. I mean it doesn't make for interesting reading, but you got to recognize that this is just giving you everything you would ever want to know. He talks about King Josiah, King Jehoiakim, and King Zedekiah. So this tells us, and he talks about the captivity. 07:21 So this tells us a lot of information, so here's a list of the kings of Judah. There are 23 kings of Judah. When is Jeremiah prophesying? It's during the last few kings from Josiah to Zedekiah. 07:36 He's about to hit the Babylonian exile. In fact, he's going to hit it while he's still prophesying. So what does this tell you about Jeremiah? Just knowing this little bit of information, it tells you that. 07:50 His is a time of great importance. 07:54 The whole world hangs on a thread and it's about to come crashing down and the people are not going to listen to him. 08:03 Because they go into exile, they disobey. So it helps you to understand a little bit of what to expect when reading the Book of Jeremiah. You know, they call Jeremiah the weeping Prophet. 08:15 Because he he just cried out to the people and they did not listen to him. He was the last chance for the people to repent. So that's a helpful thing when you're reading the prophets figure out that king. 08:26 You put it together with when the Prophet is prophesying. Alright, let me say a few words about the Prophet. 08:34 God calls prophets into his service. It's not hereditary like kings. 08:40 And it's not appointed by the king. The prophet is God's man or a. 08:45 Woman. 08:46 The Prophet is not controlled by the king. If anything, the king is upset because he can't control the prophet. 08:54 Sometimes the kings and the prophets had a good relationship. Sometimes they had a bad relationship. 09:00 But the prophet is God's person. Sometimes they have a vision. Those are some of my favorite parts. 09:06 Of the prophets. 09:08 Ezekiel one Isaiah. 09:10 Daniel, 7 these moments where the prophet sees God sitting on his throne. Just awesome stuff, and sometimes we get a commissioning narrative which we get in Jeremiah, which is really helpful. It says in Jeremiah 14 now the word of the Lord came to me saying before I formed you in the womb I knew you. And before you were born. 09:29 And I consecrated you, I appointed you a prophet to the nations. 09:35 This is the word he heard from God. 09:38 Verse six then, I said, Ah, Lord God, truly, I do not know how to speak, for I am only a boy. 09:46 But the Lord said to me, do not say I am only a boy, for you shall go to all to whom I send you, and you shall speak whatever I command. You do not be afraid of them, for I am with you to deliver. You says the Lord. 10:00 Then the Lord put his hand and touched my mouth, and the Lord said to me, now I have put my words in your mouth. See today I appoint you over nations and over kingdoms to pluck up and to pull down, to destroy and to overthrow, to build and to plant. 10:19 This is a really great commissioning that we see in the Book of Jeremiah. A lot of prophets don't give you this kind of detail, which is why I picked Jeremiah. He just gives you. 10:28 Thing. 10:29 But if you do get a commissioning, it gives you a sense of who the prophet is. 10:34 And why they are doing this? Because being a prophet generally is a terrible job. You don't get paid well. People hate you, you get persecuted, you get executed. 10:47 These are people touched by God to bring a word in their time, and they are blessed to receive a commissioning and and sometimes even a vision of God that changes them for. 10:58 Ever. 10:59 So God says to Jeremiah. I've chosen you before you were even born. I want to say something about that very quickly, just for theological reasons. I don't think Jeremiah is calling was irresistible. 11:13 Jeremiah could have rejected God's call in his life, just like Saul. The king rejected God's calling, his life, or Aaron's sons disobeyed and lost the call on their life. Or it says the Pharisees rejected God's purpose for them in Luke 7:30. 11:31 So I I think a prophet isn't like controlled by God or forced to do a job, but. 11:37 But. 11:38 A prophet has to agree to do the job and then they are basically going to be God's mouthpiece. They're going to speak his words. What an awesome privilege, huh? 11:50 Some of the prophets, like I mentioned before. 11:54 The king would come to them for advice. Other times the Prophet would speak a prophecy about the king, just like in a public space, and it would give back to the king. There's some interesting dynamics between the Prophet and the king, and sometimes there would even be competition between. 12:11 One prophet and another prophet and both prophets are calling the other one a false prophet and the people are like. 12:20 Who do we listen to? 12:22 We find this in Jeremiah Chapter 28, verse one. It says the prophet Hananiah son of Azar from Gibeon spoke to me in the House of the Lord in the presence of the priests and and all the people saying thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel. Sounds good. 12:40 I have broken the yoke of the King of Babylon. Sounds even better. 12:44 Man, that's great. Break off that yoke. We don't want that King of Babylon. 12:49 Within two years, I will bring back to this place all the vessels of the Lord's House, which King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon took away from this place and carried to Babylon. It's it's a beautiful prophecy. 13:02 Now the gold standard for verifying a prophet is true or false. 13:07 Is whether or not what they say comes true. We see this in Deuteronomy chapter 18. God lays it out very specifically to Moses and says look, if the Prophet prophecies something, it doesn't come true. Kill him. 13:20 No tolerance for. 13:21 Error. 13:22 It's really a a high standard. How many of these books that people write predicting the coming of Christ would not get written if the author was executed? If he was found to be wrong, right? You know, we don't have this standard in our culture, but in their culture it was. They took it very seriously. Like you're going to speak for God. You better be a real prophet. 13:43 And if you're not, then you're going to get executed. 13:47 So this guy, Hannah, Maya, his prophecy was. 13:50 Did you see that right there within two years? 13:53 Everything's going to be good. The King of Babylon is going to stop attacking us. We're going to get back everything he took. Well, guess what, Jeremiah? Prophesying the opposite. 14:04 Jeremiah says no, no, no. It's going to get worse. He's coming back. He's going to take us out of here. 14:11 Jeremiah says in chapter 28, verse 15. 14:14 And the prophet Jeremiah said to the prophet Hananiah, listen Hannah. 14:19 The Lord has not sent you. You made this people trust in a lie. 14:25 You imagine that. 14:27 These two prophets go at it like a duel in the in the. 14:29 Hot sun, you know like. 14:31 The Lord has not sent you. Oh, the Lord has not. 14:33 Sent you, Jeremiah. You know it just. It's the intensity. Therefore. Verse 16 thus says the Lord. I am going to send you off the face of the earth. It's a prophetic trash talk right within this year you will be dead. 14:47 For you have spoken rebellion against the Lord in that same year, in the seventh month of Prophet Hannah and. 14:53 I had died. 14:55 So sometimes you have true prophets and false prophets. Sometimes you have prophets of Yahweh, the true God. You have prophets of other gods like Baal or Asherah. 15:05 Let's talk about acting out prophecies. These are some of the coolest parts of the prophets. 15:10 Ezekiel. 15:12 Ezekiel is the master actor Outer. That's not a word, but whatever. He's the master at acting out his prophecies. 15:21 At one point he built a model of Jerusalem. 15:24 And acted out a siege against it. 15:27 And he lay on his side for 390. 15:30 Days. 15:31 I think Gandhi kind of did this a little bit. You know, some of this kind. 15:34 Of showmanship, you know, he he would. 15:36 Do these different prophetic acts to symbolize what was coming. 15:41 And then God told him at one point to cook his. 15:43 Food. 15:44 Over human poop. 15:48 And Ezekiel said. 15:50 Lord, I have never eaten any unclean food. 15:54 Do not like he was just like he like he did all the other things God told him to do. He said. God, don't don't have me. 16:01 Do this. 16:02 God said alright, you can use animal. You can use animal excrement instead of human. It's like oh, thanks so much. You know, not not to like eat it but like to make. 16:12 The fire, OK. 16:13 Still, it's gross. 16:14 Right. 16:16 Totally gross. Alright, the Jeremiah. He shatters a piece of pottery and. 16:20 He's like, oh, thus. 16:21 Says the Lord, and he's got this big prophecy about this shattered piece of pottery. 16:26 At one point, Jeremiah makes a wooden yoke that would go on the necks of two oxen, and he wears it around. He's wearing a yoke around town. 16:37 And you know, just says the Lord, this yoke is going to be on you from the King of Babylon. You know, he acted out, acted out his properties. He bought a property while the city is under siege. 16:48 This is like when the stock market crashes. Everyone's freaking out. Everyone's going to the bank. Everyone's trying to get out of the stock market. And here's this one guy. It's like, you know what I think it's. 16:59 A good time to buy. 17:01 It's like the end of the world, buddy. The the city is surrounded by an army. 17:06 And you're going to buy a piece of land. 17:09 The other guys are about to take the land. 17:12 But the point he was making of that prophecy was wasn't really about buying the property. It was about showing that one day God would restore the land and it would have value again. That Isaiah, this is this will blow your mind. God had him walk barefoot naked. 17:29 For three years. 17:32 See, you don't want to be a prophet. 17:33 You know like this. 17:35 Stuff is not easy. 17:37 Or Hosea. 17:39 Married in unfaithful prostitute to illustrate God's relationship with Israel, who kept cheating on him by worshipping idols. 17:49 So the prophets preached to the people they preached. They were the preachers of their day. Most of what the prophets say is not telling the future. Most of it is telling the the people right in the. 18:02 Present. 18:03 They preach fidelity to the Torah, the covenant they preach justice and business dealings and courts. 18:12 They preach to take care of the vulnerable quartet. You know the vulnerable quartet. 18:18 This is Jeremiah 2211. For thus says the Lord concerning Shalom, son of King Josiah of Judah, who succeeded his father. 18:28 Woe to him who builds his house by unrighteousness, and his upper rooms by injustice, who makes his neighbors work for nothing and does not give them their wages. 18:39 Who says I will build myself a spacious house with large upper rooms? And who cuts out windows for it? Paneling it with cedar and painting it with Vermilion. 18:48 Are you a king because you compete in Cedar? 18:51 Did not your father eat and drink and do justice and righteousness? Then it was well with him. He judged the case of the poor and needy. Then it was well. Is not this to know me? 19:02 Says the Lord. 19:04 The quartet of the Vulnerable is the widow, the orphan, the sojourner and the poor. These are the vulnerable people in society, the prophets. I don't care if it's Jeremiah or whichever the prophets we're talking about. They especially care about these vulnerable and needy people. 19:24 He's blown up this king because he's building a mansion. 19:28 While there's poor people that are in. 19:30 Need in his Kingdom. 19:33 The prophets, they encourage the people to practice moral and ritual aspects of religion. A lot of times people will think to themselves. 19:44 As long as I make the right sacrifices. 19:47 I can. 19:49 I can cheat. 19:50 In other areas of my life. 19:53 The prophets are there to say no, that's not how you're not going to fool God. Jeremiah 7, verse four says. Do not trust in these deceptive words. 20:03 This is the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord. 20:08 First, you truly amend your ways and your doings. If you truly act justly, one with another. If you do not oppress the alien, the orphan, and the widow, or shed innocent blood in this place. And if you do not go after other gods to your own hurt, then I will dwell with you in this place, in the land that I gave to your ancestors. 20:28 Forever and ever. 20:30 Here you are trusting in deceptive words to no avail. Will you steal murder, commit adultery, swear falsely, make offerings to all, and go after other gods that you have not known, and then come and stand before me in this house, which is called by my name and say. 20:47 We are safe. 20:49 Only to go on doing all these abominations. 20:53 This is something the prophets preach against. You want to do your religion, but then you want to be mean to other people and and be unjust and use exploitive practices that harm others. 21:06 I don't think so. You want to offer a sacrifice to Yahweh and a sacrifice to some other God. That's not how he rolls. He expects faithfulness to him. 21:17 Here's another example avoiding fake righteousness and hypocrisy. Jeremiah 98 their tongue is a deadly arrow. It speaks deceit through the mouth. They all speak friendly words to their neighbors, but inwardly are planning to lay an ambush. 21:34 Some Christians like this. Yeah, I'm not. Really. This is not like a preaching class. I'm not gonna. I'm not gonna roast anybody. But I mean, we have to be careful. We don't want to be hypocrites in our faith. And the prophets are really zealous to call this out among their own people and just say, look, don't you just talk to talk? You have to walk the walk as well. 21:56 And then one of their biggest things by far is not worshiping idols. They preach against this relentlessly. 22:03 Jeremiah 716 is an example. As for you, do not pray for this. People do not raise a cry or prayer on their behalf. This is like one of the most chilling parts of the whole book of Jeremiah where God says. 22:14 To the prophets. 22:15 Stop praying for them. Don't want you praying for them. Imagine God saying don't pray. 22:22 He goes on, do not intercede with me, for I will not hear you. Verse 17. Do you not see what they are doing in the towns of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem? The children gather wood. The fathers Kindle Fire. The women need dough to make cakes for the queen of heaven and they pour out drink offerings to other gods. 22:42 Provoke me to anger you could just feel the wrath of God boiling in the background of that. 22:51 The prophets also prophecy about the future. Like I said, most of what they say is addressing situations of people in their own time, but they also do have prophecies about the future and so they will have prophecies about near judgment or restoration, and then about far judgment or restoration. 23:09 So for example, they will prophecy a judgment on other nations like Egypt or Syria. 23:14 Felicia. 23:16 And then they also prophecy how God will use the Assyrians and Babylonians to Judge Israel or Judah. 23:22 Who prophecy about returning to the land to enjoy covenant blessings and how to be faithful or lose the land again if we're in the post exilic prophets. Zechariah, Haggai, Malachi. 23:36 The focus there is not so much the Babylonians are coming. The Babylonians came when their empire is gone. They're now living under a different regime under the Persian Empire, and they're they don't really have full independence anyhow. But like the idea is, you know, we have the land, we have control over our own land, but we could lose it if we're not faithful to God. 23:56 So it depends on what time period you're you're looking at, but it's all very similar. 24:02 Then there's prophecies about the future, and these are my favorite. These are just incredible sections of the prophets. 24:09 Eschatological judgment and restoration. So I I told you you had near and then you had far right. Eschatological is a fancy word for end times and it's the idea that these are yet in our future. 24:22 So a prophet could be prophesying something that's in their future, but from our perspective has already happened. 24:29 Or they could be prop signing something that is so far out in the future that even though we're however many years later, it's still future for us, and that's what I'm talking about here. 24:38 Jeremiah has a wonderful prophecy about a Davidic king who will rule wisely and execute justice in Chapter 23, verse five, he says. 24:46 The days are surely coming, says the Lord, when I will raise up for David, a righteous branch, and he shall reign as king and deal wisely, and shall execute justice and righteousness in the land. In his days, Judah will be saved and Israel will live in safety, and this is the name by which he will be called. 25:06 The Lord is our righteousness. 25:09 So this is a prophecy about a king that's gonna come. Boy, wouldn't that be something a king who judges justly, deals wisely and has righteousness in the land? You know that these all sound very. 25:22 Good for a. 25:23 Ruler in my opinion. 25:25 And so this is the prophecy of the ultimate Messiah to come. They call him. 25:29 The righteous they use this term a branch. The idea is that David is a tree. 25:36 And then one of his descendants is a branch off of that tree, and then the roots of the tree are Jesse, his, his ancestors, and so forth. So there's also lots of other eschatological judgment and restoration prophecies. There's a prophecy about healing for the lame, deaf, blind. There's healing for the land, especially the deserts, to give Isaiah 35 the. 25:58 There's prophecy about abundance and prosperity. There's prophecy is about peace among the nations not needing militaries or even training for war anymore. Peace among the animals and elimination of deaths itself. So these these are all part of these beautiful prophecies of what I call restoration. 26:18 But there's also prophecies of judgment where God will judge sinners, and God will have his day of reckoning with those who are living unrighteously. I didn't really include those on this slide, but they're they're in the prophets. If you read the prophets, you'll see them. 26:35 Besides prophecies of the future, I'd like to make one last point and and this is an important point, and that is like I mentioned to you before, the prophets are are close to God. They're not normal people. OK. You should think like ohh, well, maybe, maybe I could be a prophet someday. Well, maybe I don't know. But like, these are special people that God has chosen for this particular time and place. 26:56 And they have. They have kind of a difficult life, but at the same time they have a window into the heart of God like no one else. And that's my favorite part about the prophets. The prophets reveal God's heart and they show. 27:10 Us. 27:10 That God is a lover. 27:14 The prophets express God's emotions, his pesos. 27:19 The pathos of God flows through the prophets like a conduit. You really feel God by reading the prophets. 27:27 For better or for worse, because a lot of the prophets is like gossip set, you know, there's points of joy and rejoicing. There's a part in Zephaniah 3 where God is singing over his people. He's just so overjoyed. This beautiful vision of. 27:41 The future Kingdom. 27:43 But there's a dark side to love, and that is if you truly love someone. 27:48 Then, when somebody harms that person. 27:52 It upsets you. 27:54 If somebody cheats on you, if you're really in a a faithful, loving relationship with somebody in covenant relationships and they cheat on you, you should get angry. 28:03 It's not unrighteous, you know, the Bible says, be angry and sin, not anger itself is not a sin. But if because you're angry you do something sinful, well, that's obviously a sin. So God is completely capable of being angry without sinning. And guess what? He's in charge of the justice. 28:22 So he gets he gets to express that anger when he sees fit, and he has the wisdom and righteousness to do it correctly. 28:31 Not to overdo it. 28:33 Hosea in particular that Prophet Hosea shows you the desperate desire God has for fidelity with his people. Ohh if they would just be faithful to me at one point, he says to Hosea. Go marry a prostitute. Hosea finds this lady named Gomer, he marries her, has a kid with her. 28:53 She goes off and cheats on him. She goes back to her old life. God says go get her back. 29:00 Then that's like God's heart. And then you can start to feel his heart because you're like, Oh my goodness, you know, that would be just devastating to go do that. Ezekiel 16 shows how broken hearted God is over what his people are doing. And there's lots of colorful language in the prophets. There's some parts of the prophets that like. 29:20 I wouldn't let a kid read. 29:22 Like Ezekiel 16. 29:25 The prophets will use colorful language like horror and prostitute and stuff that you just you wouldn't think is in the Bible is in the Bible because of just the emotion they're dealing with. God is not cool and apathetic towards his people. God is not a robot. God is not a a cosmic vending machine. He is an individual in whose image were made. 29:45 Because we're in his image, we have a way of relating to him. I believe that may surprise you still in the darkest moments, God provides hope for a remm. 29:57 And that's an important category in the prophets. The idea of of remnant. God recognizes that not all of his people really want him and desire him. But he recognizes that there's a remnant. There's there's a a minority of people that will choose him in every generation. 30:15 Understanding God's heart is a huge benefit to us today because God is still God. His emotions are still his emotions, and his character doesn't change over time. 30:24 Now. 30:25 Going to other spiritual powers is still forbidden today. Worshipping other gods is still forbidden. You know a lot of these things are very. 30:31 Relevant to our. 30:32 Lives today, putting your trust and wealth or fame and exploiting poor people. It's still wrong today, just like it was wrong then. So there. There's so much more in the prophets. I I hope this little review at least can give you a sense of what you can find there. 30:47 But let's review. 30:50 The prophets make up a huge portion of the Old Testament, 17 books and a 39. 30:56 Some prophets served before the exile, others during the exile and others after the exile. 31:04 Pay attention to the historical context, including who was king and what was happening with Israel or Judah, and I didn't mention this, but some of the prophets they prophesied to the northern Kingdom, some prophesied just to the southern Kingdom. Some prophesied of both. 31:18 So you can you can keep track of that while you're reading them. 31:22 Prophets are commissioned by God to speak his words to his people and his king. 31:29 The prophets sometimes had encounters with false prophets who challenged their message and authority. 31:36 A prophet's prediction serves to authenticate or disprove their legitimacy. 31:42 The prophets fought injustice, especially the exploitation of the quartet of the vulnerable, the widow of the orphan, the Sojourner and the poor. 31:51 The prophets railed against idolatry and hypocrisy. 31:56 Yet they also prophesied about the ultimate judgment and restoration of the coming Kingdom, offering hope for the remnant. 32:05 Because the prophets were close to God, they reveal his heart in a way no other part of the Bible does. 32:12 Well, that's it for the prophets. Next time we will look at key background information for the New Testament. This kind of wraps up our Old Testament section. We're going to go to New Testament next as we continue our class, how to read the Bible for yourself. 32:35 Well, that brings this one to an end. What did you think? Come on over to restitutio.org and find Episode 542 how to read the prophets and leave your feedback there. I mentioned a couple of events last week I wanted to mention one more this week. 32:50 My wife Ruth, puts on a women's conference each year, and it's usually well attended. It's a great time for the ladies to get together and hear some teachings and sing some praise songs. They have workshops and lots of fellowship time. 33:04 If you are interested in that, you can find out more about the living Hope Women's conference at lhim.org. That's LHIMA t.org and the cost is $80.00, which covers lunch and dinner on Saturday, as well as lunch on Sunday. 33:25 Housing is on your own. There are plenty of hotels in the area where our church is, right? 33:30 There Albany, NY, which is the capital. Believe it or not. And so there's lots of hotels that you should be able to find. Check it out if you're interested. So far there's already over 60 ladies signed up. This event is April 19th to the 21st, so it's coming up in a few weeks here. I figured I'd mentioned it here on the podcast. See if any of the lady. 33:51 Listeners would like to join. 33:52 And I am not going to be attending because it's kind of not allowed for guys to go to the Women's Conference for obvious reasons I suppose. Nor do the women come to the men's conference. That was last two weekends ago, and yet I am actually going to be there Sunday because as part of the Women's Conference, they do incorporate. 34:14 The regular Sunday service into the event, so I'm actually preaching that Sunday on Lydia of Philippi. So it would be great to meet anybody if you did make it. 34:24 For the event, well, that's going to be it for this week. Thanks everyone for listening. If you'd like to support us, you can do that at restitutio.org. We'll catch you next week. And remember, the truth has nothing to fear.