Day 193 – Reading – Amos 6 – 9

Read today’s Scriptures.  Do you see connections?

Amos 6.

Amos cries “WOE” to the rich and fat who have a life of ease; those who lie on ivory beds and stretch themselves out on couches, eating the tenderest of lamb and veal. Those who sit around strumming harps and singing lovely songs, while drinking wine … from bowls, and are perfumed with the finest oils and ointments.  THEY WILL BE THE FIRST TO GO INTO EXILE!

“Behold, I will raise up against you a nation, O house of Israel,” declares the LORD, the God of hosts; “and they shall oppress you from ‘the north clear to the south.'”

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Amos 7.

Amos next tells about FIVE VISIONS from the LORD.

• 1.  God prepares LOCUSTS to destroy the latter growth of grass, the people’s portion, after the king has taken his part. They will all be wiped out, and Amos intercedes for them, “O Lord GOD, please forgive! How can Jacob stand? He is so small!“  And the Lord relents, for the remnant’s sake.
• 2.  Next. God calls a judgment of FIRE to eat up the ‘great deep’ and all the land to produce a devastating drought.  Again, Amos intercedes for them, “O Lord GOD, please cease! How can Jacob stand? He is so small!” The Lord relents.
• 3.  God showed Amos a vision of God himself with a PLUMB LINE, measuring Israel. “I will never again pass through my people, Israel. The high places will be made desolate, the sanctuaries laid waste, and I’ll raise a sword over the house of Jeroboam II.”

The priest at Bethel (where one of the golden calves is set up) complains about Amos to King Jeroboam. “The land is not able to bear all his words!”  

The priest told Amos to go away, to the land of Judah, and prophesy there.  He was never again to come to Bethel, for it was “the king’s sanctuary.”  HA!

Amos whipped right back, “The LORD took me from following the flock and TOLD me to go, prophesy to Israel.  Now hear THIS! 

• Your wife shall be a prostitute in the city, your sons and daughters will fall by the sword, your land will be divided up, and you, yourself, will die in an unclean land, and … Israel shall surely go into exile away from this land!’

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Amos 8.

• 4.  The LORD then shows Amos a BASKET OF RIPE FRUIT.  Then God show him that Israel is ripe for judgment. “The end has come upon my people Israel; I will never again pass by them. The songs of the Temple shall become wailings in that day.  So many dead bodies!  They are thrown everywhere!  “Silence!”
• Then the LORD lists their sins: False worship, waiting impatiently till they can again go and indulge in rich food and rip off the poor with false balances, and buy them for slaves.. “Surely, I will NEVER forget your deeds. O you proud of Jacob!”
• “Behold, the days are coming,” declares the LORD God, “when I will send a famine on the land — not a famine of bread or a thirst for water but of HEARING THE WORDS OF THE LORD; They shall wander from sea to sea and from north to east; they shall run to and fro, to seek the Word of the LORD … BUT THEY SHALL NOT FIND IT!”

Whoa!

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Amos 9.

And then the 5th vision…

• 5.  God is standing beside the altar at Bethel. “Strike the capitals until the thresholds shake, and shatter them on the heads of all the people. And those who are left of them, I will kill with the sword; NOT ONE of them shall flee away; NOT ONE of them shall escape.
• …..”And if they dig into Sheol….  if they climb up to heaven…. if they hide themselves on Carmel…. if they hide at the bottom of the sea….  I will find them and take them and kill them.”
• ….. “EXCEPT … I will not UTTERLY destroy the house of Jacob, “declares the LORD.”

And then God gives Amos a wonderful picture of the Restoration of Israel in the Millennial Kingdom, when the Messiah will reign.

• “I will restore the fortunes of my people Israel, and they shall rebuild the ruined cities and in habit them; they shall plant vineyards and drink their wine, and they shall make gardens and eat their fruit.  I will plant them on their land, and they shall never again be uprooted out ot the land that I have given them,” says the LORD your God. 

 

(This is the ultimate fulfillment of God’s promise to Abraham, and will occur when Jesus Christ is reigning on earth in the thousand years of promise.  Israel will be “shaken by a sieve throughout the nations,” but only the “chaff” will be punished.  Israel won’t return to the land, as the southern kingdom of Judah does 70 years after exile to Babylon.  But the righteous remnant of Israel and Judah will live under Christ’s reign for one thousand years.  And Abraham will be satisfied.)