It’s September 11. Let’s pause to pray for Christ’s peace to find a place in people’s hearts all around the world!
Amos 8-9
Amos finishes his prophecy with a flourish. God used a plumb line to introduce the judgment in Amos 7, He uses a basket of ripe fruit to introduce the same judgment in Amos 8. The ripeness of the fruit signifies that the time is ripe for judgment!
Here are the signs of their ripeness for judgment:
God’s people trample on the needy, and try to “do away with the poor” in the land. (8:4)
During worship, they can only think about getting back to work and making more money. (8:5)
In an effort to make more money, they use dishonest scales and cheat people.
They are especially unfair in their dealings with the poor. (8:6)
As a result, the land itself will tremble, darkness will descend, the people will mourn and famine will descend. This is not necessarily a famine of food, but a famine of God’s Word! The idolatrous will fall, never to rise again. And Israel, no matter what she does, will experience historic destruction.
Yet, there is hope. God says, “I will not totally destroy the house of Jacob” (9:8). On some future day (future, even to us), God will “restore David’s fallen tent,” meaning: God will restore Israel as a whole and united nation. Exiles will be brought home. Cities will be rebuilt. And the land will produce its fruit.
Tomorrow, we read Obadiah in one fell swoop!
Your fellow pilgrim through the Prophets,
Pastor Gary
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