365 Reflections

Amos ends with a picture of great judgment followed by a picture of incredible grace and restoration. Once again, the prophetic ministry is rehearsed wherein God punished strongly but restores most graciously.  Amos 9:1 (ESV) I saw the Lord standing beside the altar, and he said: “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. The Lord standing beside the altar is a striking image. Amos has already decried the empty religious practices of the nation.  Amos 5:21–22 (ESV) “I hate, I despise your feasts, and I take no delight in your solemn assemblies. 22 Even though you offer me your burnt offerings and grain offerings, I will not accept them... They might have assumed the Lord was there to bless them for their empty rituals. He was not. He was there in judgment. When God shows up, it's not always a happy ev...

What do you think is the worst form of judgment from God? Boils and pains on your body? The loss of your financial stability? Perhaps social isolation and the loss of friends? How about the death of a loved one? When you think of those things, I'm sure one of them strikes you as the worst form of punishment God can offer. Amos 8 teaches us something different. Amos 8 unpacks that God's judgment is climactically experienced in His silence.  Before we proceed, we must examine the spiritual state of Israel at the time of this writing.  Amos 8:1–3 (ESV) This is what the Lord GOD showed me: behold, a basket of summer fruit. 2 And he said, “Amos, what do you see?” And I said, “A basket of summer fruit.” Then the LORD said to me, “The end has come upon my people Israel; I will never again pass by them. 3 The songs of the temple shall become wailings in that day,” declares the Lord GOD. “So many dead bodies!” “They are thrown everywhere!” “Silence!” So far in Amos, the prophet has e...

Often times, when we think about the prophets of the Old Testament, we perceive them as a sort of grumpy, dour, negative doom and gloom sort of individual. But have you ever thought where the nation, and even the world, would be if it were not for a prophet willing to tell us the truth?  Amos 7 introduces us to the response of the prophet as God declared His intentions to judge faithless Israel. He is first presented with the image of a locust plague devouring the nation. The prophet, who we may mistake as an angry doom-sayer, intercedes on behalf of the people.  Amos 7:2–3 (ESV) When they had finished eating the grass of the land, I said, “O Lord God, please forgive! How can Jacob stand? He is so small!” 3 The Lord relented concerning this: “It shall not be,” said the Lord. Another prophesy of doom comes to the prophet from the Lord. This time fire swept across the land and devoured it. Once again, the prophet intercedes.  Amos 7:4–6 (ESV) This is what the Lord God show...

Again and again the prophets warn that ease and comfort are sometimes the most notable signs of approaching doom. is that where America is? In Amos 6, the prophet chides the noble leaders of Israel, who assume their luxury and notability are signs no distress is coming.  Amos 6:1 (ESV) “Woe to those who are at ease in Zion, and to those who feel secure on the mountain of Samaria, the notable men of the first of the nations, to whom the house of Israel comes! The judgment first comes for the rich in Amos. Usually in antiquity, the rich avoid the hostilities of takeovers and wars because they have the means by which to escape. God here makes certain that it shall not be the case for His people. The rich will not avoid disaster through their abundance.  Amos 6:7 (ESV) Therefore they shall now be the first of those who go into exile, and the revelry of those who stretch themselves out shall pass away.” God asks them to consider the nations already toppled by the hand of the Lord....

Delayed post. I’m in Greece with a group of people from my church. Today we travel from Athens to Corinth. We will be taking in the sights of Pauls travels around the Mediterranean for the next few days. I will post as possible, but that’s where I’m at. As I think about it, I’m traveling the world of the New Testament while writing about Amos the prophet who lived in the sliver of land in the Old Testament. God’s vision for the people of Israel, fulfilled in Christ and carried forward by Paul was bigger than anyone in Amos’ day even dreamed.  Amos 5:18-20 (ESV) Woe to you who desire the day of the Lord! Why would you have the day of the Lord? It is darkness, and not light, 19 as if a man fled from a lion, and a bear met him, or went into the house and leaned his hand against the wall, and a serpent bit him. 20 Is not the day of the Lord darkness, and not light, and gloom with no brightness in it?  The people of Israel longed for the day of the Lord. But they were unaware that...

We continue to see that the prophet Amos was not some hillbilly country bumpkin but a skilled orator, writer, and convicting prophet sent from God. Never judge a book by its cover. In Amos 5, the prophet writes a lamentation over Israel, which would be an ancient funeral dirge.  Amos 5:1–2 (ESV) Hear this word that I take up over you in lamentation, O house of Israel: 2 “Fallen, no more to rise, is the virgin Israel; forsaken on her land, with none to raise her up.” The prophet is predicting the end of Israel. And in the next verse, he sheds more light on the trouble to come.  Amos 5:3 (ESV) For thus says the Lord GOD: “The city that went out a thousand shall have a hundred left, and that which went out a hundred shall have ten left to the house of Israel.” Now these words were fulfilled later, but at the time of their statement, they must have sounded like nonsense. Even one chapter earlie,r we heard about the "cows of Bashan" who lived in luxury and the "vibrant"...