epcblog: September 2008

Micah 1

Micah ministered to the Lord’s people as a prophet in the days of various important kings of Judah. He is often identified with the prophet Isaiah for obvious reasons that can be seen from the first verse of that larger book of prophesy: “The vision of Isaiah the son of Amoz, which he saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem in the days of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah.” Micah and Isaiah both served the Lord during the reign of Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah. The first and third of these kings are noted as those that did what was right in the eyes of God. By contrast Ahaz did what was evil in the eyes of the Lord. Micah (and Isaiah) served during a time of some variety because of differences in the reigns of these three kings. On the other hand the kind of problems that the prophet speaks about were surely things that happened during the reigns of all of these kings.

The Lord begins the book by saying something to all the nations and peoples of the earth. There is something in what God is saying about Judah and Israel that should be instructive to other peoples. The Lord is the God of His covenant people, the descendents of Jacob. Yet God is coming in judgment against them through the Assyrians, and later through the Babylonians. The problems that will come through foreign powers to the north and east are said to be troubles that have come from the Lord’s holy temple in the heavens. From that high place, God is coming down against the wickedness of His people. How is this instructive to other nations? If this is the way that the Lord will treat His own beloved flock, what will be the fate of the other nations who have also sinned against God? There is something here for the world to learn. We are in grave trouble. We cannot stand before this holy God.

It is a sad thing to have the sins of the covenant community on public display before the peoples of the earth. Micah laments deeply over his divine charge of showing the failure of the Lord’s people and the consequences of their sins. He says that the condition of Israel is incurable, and that this same wound has come to Judah. He uses the names of various places in order to reinforce the sure judgment that is coming upon the towns of Judah and Israel. He refers to their fate of some injury or destruction by using Hebrew words that sound like the names of the towns that would soon suffer these trials.

There is much trouble for the inhabitants of this world as we swim through deep waters of overwhelming unrighteousness. From beginning to end there is deceit and idolatry everywhere. We have many reasons to mourn. We have great sadness over the loss of family members who are no more. Trial and death are all around us, and it might appear that there is no way out. If inclusion in the line of Jacob cannot save people from the wrath of Yahweh, what possible hope can there be for those who have no relation to the chosen people of God?

It should be very clear that all have sinned and have fallen short of the glory of God. Yet God was not content to leave us without hope. He has set His affection upon His elect, not only from Judah and Israel, but also from the other nations. Through the words of prophets like Micah and Isaiah, we have come to see our own sinfulness as we hear the Lord’s indictment against His Old Testament people. Through the Law and the prophets we have a consistent story that proves to us that the way of peace with God must come from outside of ourselves.

The Lord Himself needed to work out our salvation. Only by His mighty hand could our rescue be accomplished. Through the cross of Christ we see displayed an ultimate and effectual exile that we deserved. Judah and Israel did deserve to be sent away from the Promised Land. As observers of their grief from various nations of the earth we must frankly admit that our sin deserves displacement from any place of blessing. But Christ was exiled for us. He was cast out of the holy city and nailed to a cross, though He had done nothing wrong. He was cut off of the Lord’s people that we might be brought in, together with many descendants of Jacob. We have been justified by His grace as a gift, through the redemption that is ours in Christ Jesus.

Jonah 4

God sent Jonah to preach to the inhabitants of the capital of the Assyrian Empire, the city of Nineveh. Though Jonah originally sailed away in the wrong direction, the Lord prevailed upon Him through the agency of a dangerous storm, a ship full of reluctant pagan sailors, and a very large fish. Jonah did eventually arrive on the scene and presented his no-nonsense message: “Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown!” Amazingly, the people of Nineveh, from the highest to the lowest, repented. Good news? Not to Jonah. The prophet was very angry, and He expressed his anger to the Lord God in prayer.

In this prayer to God we begin to understand definitively why Jonah did not originally want to go to Nineveh at all. Why was Jonah angry? Jonah knew of the Lord’s character, that God was gracious and merciful, abounding in steadfast love. Most of all Jonah knew that God might relent from judgment if the people humbled themselves before him. Jonah knew that the Lord God might even have mercy on Assyrians. It was his knowledge of this that made Jonah reluctant to answer the Lord’s call to go to Nineveh and to speak against the city. Jonah wanted to see the Lord’s justice come against the Assyrians, and he was unwilling to allow the Lord’s mercy to get in the way of his dreams. Now the worst had happened. The Assyrians had repented and the Lord would likely extend his great mercy. Jonah was so angry that he wanted to die.

God had a simple question for the prophet. “Do you do well to be angry?” It’s a good question. When God’s servants are angry, the anger is not always righteous. A prophet might do well to be angry. We are told in another place in the Bible to be angry. Specifically the instruction is, “Be angry, but do not sin.” Was Jonah sinning in His anger? The Assyrians were brutal, and treated Israel and Judah with oppression. Their leaders spoke against the Lord and His people with impunity. Jonah would have been right to be angry with that empire. But that was not the specific religious anger in question. Jonah was angry with God for showing mercy to repentant sinners who were part of an evil empire. He did not do well to be angry with God about the Lord’s mercy.

We have no immediate answer from Jonah to the Lord’s direct question, but this conversation was not over yet. Jonah takes his spot outside of the city and seems to wait for the unlikely event that he is hoping for, the destruction of Nineveh. In the meantime, the Lord causes the amazing growth of a plant in order to provide shade for his prophet while Jonah waits for good news of judgment. Jonah was very happy about the plant, but the joy of this provision was short-lived. God appointed a worm to destroy the plant, and Jonah lost his shade. The God turned up the heat and the wind on his prophet, and Jonah was very angry and ready to die over this indignity. God asks his question again, this time about the loss of the plant. “Do you do well to be angry for the plant?”

The Lord spoke to Jonah in a way that suggested that Jonah had some mercy for the plant. Israel was God’s plant. She was raised up by the Lord, and she could be justly taken away by the Lord. It was right to care about Israel. It turns out that it was right for God’s people to also care about the other nations of the world, even the bad ones. It was right to be happy about God’s mercy in that generation for Nineveh. God relented concerning the destruction of that city for a time. He cared for the 120,000 children who did not know their right hand from their left. He even cared for the cattle.

Thus ends the book of Jonah. Here we are given the opportunity to laugh at a prophet who was angry about God’s mercy to bad Gentiles. Does it seem like an impossible story to you? Not just the fish and the plant, but impossible that someone zealous for the Lord would hate the fact of the Lord’s mercy toward the ungodly? It should not seem strange to those who know the history of the New Testament. When Christ came to die for the sins of His people, there were many who were offended by His statements concerning mercy to those who seemed to be unworthy. Later the Apostle Paul would face the wrath of his own kind of people, Pharisaic Jews. Some who had even become a part of the church did not approve of the notion that Gentiles could become true followers of Christ without attention to the ceremonial Law of Moses. These were not small matters to many Jews. The suggestion that righteousness could not come from the ceremonial Law made many people very angry.

Christ was angry, but He did not sin. He was angry with self-righteousness. He was angry with commercialism in the worship of God. He was angry with the abuse of the poor. He was so angry with sin that He did something about it. He paid the price for it, so that it could be utterly defeated for the Lord’s elect. On the cross the Lord’s perfect justice met His perfect mercy. One thing the Christ was not angry about was the gracious plan of God to save sinners. He gave His life for it. When those who claim to follow Him hate to see His mercy toward others with a horrible history of sin, the Lord is right to be angry with them.

Prayer based on Exodus 27

Almighty God, Your Son was offered up for us, as our one great Sacrifice. Everything in Your earthly sanctuary was holy. Every item was to be treated with the greatest reverence and respect, for these symbolic items spoke to us of You and Your grace. Help us to revere You as the One true living God. Grant us oil for our lamps, O Lord, for we shine forth for Your glory. Supply us with a Word from heaven, that we might live.

Prayer based on Jeremiah 19

Lord God, the end of the wicked is a shocking reality that requires our serious consideration. This is what we deserved because of our sin, and this is what Your Son has suffered for us through His death on the cross. Father, among the people of this world over the course of centuries we have learned of times of devastating destruction. In the pages of Your Word we have read about the things that took place in Israel and Judah, times of suffering and exile that were severely troubling. Thank You for rescuing us from the greatest calamity. Grant to us ears to hear Your Word faithfully today, that we might worship You in Spirit and in truth.

Jonah 3

And now for round two… God had previously given Jonah the instruction to go to Nineveh, the capital of the Assyrian Empire. Jonah had refused that mission, and had moved quickly in the opposite direction. That choice led to a storm, a cry to God, a vow, a prayer of praise from within the belly of a fish, and a sort of resurrection with the beginning of something of new life for the prophet. And now here we are in the middle of this brief book right where we began. Jonah is commanded to bring this message of judgment against the city of Nineveh. This time he goes in the right direction.

For a Hebrew prophet to speak a word of judgment from God in the capital city of the Assyrians, was something like traveling into the belly of the beast. Here is Jonah, a hobbit from the Shire, and he has something that must be said in the middle of Mordor. Nineveh was apparently a very large city. It took three days of walking just to get from one end of it to the other. More than this it was the seat of power for a ruthless people that had demonstrated their ability to conquer other nations, relocating captive peoples in far-off lands, and bringing a very large amount of territory under subjection.

This is where Jonah is going as a man of God. The Lord sends people throughout the earth as messengers of the good news of Christ. The fact of God’s coming judgment is a part of that gospel. It is perhaps this fact, without which the cross loses its meaning, that makes it uncomfortable still today for isolated individuals or small teams of believers to travel to far off lands where they may feel unwelcome and unwanted. In such ministry situations it is important for the Lord’s ambassadors to remember that they have been called to this task by the God who created the seas and the dry land, who knows how to rescue His servants from great danger. Jonah should have had no doubt concerning these things.

With a boldness for judgment that is hoping against God’s mercy, Jonah speaks of the impending destruction of this great city in just forty days. And then the worst happens, at least in the mind of the reluctant prophet. The people believe and repent. This is unspeakably shocking. For anyone who knows anything about the way that people resist the truth of the Almighty, the thought that this people would repent at this preaching from this prophet can only be explained by the power of Almighty God.

What did these Assyrians do? They fasted, humbling themselves before God at the preaching of Jonah. This movement which Christ calls repentance in Matthew 12:41 seems to have started among the people. News reached the king. Instead of trying to stop this zealous reaction to a foreign prophet he joined in the repenting and issued a proclamation not only for fasting, but for a true changing of their ways, a turning away from evil and violence in the hope that God would turn from his just anger.

What makes this especially shocking is that so often the kings and people of the Lord’s covenant nations have ignored the persistent call of the prophets over many centuries. How could it be that all the nobles and people of Nineveh did what that the inhabitants of Israel and Judah should have sone? This kind of shocking repentance is a powerful illustration that the deliverance of God for lost sinners really is by grace. It is events like this that are also powerful signposts to a coming mercy to the nations of the world, as millions of Gentiles would respond to the fact of a Jewish Messiah, and would by God’s mighty grace repent and believe.

It has been the Lord’s good pleasure that the message of judgment and grace would not be limited only to the descendants of Jacob. It is also His great mercy that all of the merit of Christ’s obedience and death would actually be extended to people from every tribe, tongue, and nation, as millions are granted God’s gift of saving grace. It is also apparently a fact that some who should tremble at his Word will not do so. We are told of this surprising fact by Jesus Christ Himself in Matthew 12:41: “The men of Nineveh will rise up at the judgment with this generation and condemn it, for they repented at the preaching of Jonah, and behold, something greater than Jonah is here.”

Jonah 2

When we last left our reluctant prophet Jonah, he had been rescued from the seas through the agency of a great fish, and we were told that he was kept there for three days and three nights. This period of being entombed in that sea creature is compared by Christ to His time in an earthly tomb prior to His resurrection. Almost the entirety of the second chapter of Jonah comes to us from inside the fish. There Jonah is praying to the Lord, not so much seeking deliverance from the animal, as we might have thought, but praising God for the deliverance that He has already received.

Jonah does speak in the opening prayer about crying out to the Lord from a “belly,” but it is not the inside of a living creature that he refers to, but the belly of the place of death, called here Sheol. In other words, Jonah is acknowledging that he was effectively a dead man when he was cast out onto the seas. The prayer that he speaks from the belly of the fish refers to his earlier cry of distress in the waters. From there, as a man who was as good as dead, he called out to God, and the Lord heard his cry.

Despite the fact that it appeared that all hope was lost, and despite the deadly sentence that Jonah acknowledges, the words that came out of his mouth were words of faith, and an expectation of divine help. He says, “I shall again look upon your holy temple.” What was his hope? Did he expect that he would again be in the Jerusalem below? Perhaps, but it is at least possible that he was expressing the faith of our fathers who were looking for a better country. Expecting that his mortal life would be over in a matter of minutes, he knew that there was a heavenly temple, where those whose bodies must rest in a watery grave, can yet find their souls to be alive in the presence of the Almighty. Perhaps in the trial of what appeared to be the closing moments of his life, he considered that God was the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the God of the living and not of the dead. Perhaps he thought that he was going to the place of the living patriarchs, and that there he would look upon a better temple than that built at the direction of Solomon.

This seems to be the case, as the prophet reflects upon the eternal realities beyond this mortal world. He was about to die. He was going down into the world of the grave, where he would be locked up forever. As his life is fainting away, the Lord heard his prayer. Where was God when He listened to Jonah? The prophet says that the Lord was in His holy temple, and that this man’s prayer went up to Him into that most sacred place. As Jonah’s life was fainting away, God heard his cries in the Lord’s heavenly sanctuary.

Through Jonah’s praise from within the belly of the fish we learn that God heard Jonah’s vow. What this means is that the prophet asked for more mortal life, and promised that if the Lord was pleased to give him more years on this earth, that he would pay what he had vowed to the Lord; that “with the voice of thanksgiving” he would “sacrifice” to God. He does this even from his temporary place of rescue inside a living creature. He says these glorious words of testimony, “Salvation belongs to the Lord!” Then God prevailed upon his servant the fish to release his servant the prophet on an appropriate piece of dry land.

When our Savior was facing the end of His earthly days on a Roman cross, He also cried out to God with the words of a vow. In quoting the opening of Psalm 22, Jesus was not merely pointing to His condition as one who had been forsaken by His father. The Psalm is a song of praise. It includes a faithful expectation of deliverance, and a promised payment of praise yet to come, not only from the suffering Psalmist, but from a people who would be under the authority of this King, some of whom He acknowledged as being yet unborn.

As Jonah was heard in the roaring waves, Christ was heard as He suffered on the cross. As the fish was a place of praise for Jonah, the empty grave has become an astounding fact of evidence for us of the resurrection of our King. But there is something more than this. There is even the victory of the soul over the place of dead bodies. Where was Jesus after the cross and before the resurrection? His body was in the belly of a grave, but His Spirit was in Paradise, together with another man who died on a cross that day. The good news of Christ’s victory was obvious to the inhabitants of heaven even before Mary Magdalene saw her Lord in a garden cemetery. Salvation was already His, and that great victory was then wonderfully displayed in resurrection.

Salvation is of the Lord! Our risen Savior will keep His promise. He will bring forward a great praise in the assembly of the righteous in the heavenly sanctuary. All is well, despite the continuing evidence of the curse of God against Adam’s world. There is a new world that is coming in Christ and is already here in the gospel. That new world will be the fulfillment of what Jonah calls “salvation” which the Lord Jesus Christ has displayed as resurrection.

Jonah 1

The Apostle Paul writes to Timothy that the one who desires the work of an elder desires a good thing. One of the qualifications for this office is that a person be apt to teach. Within this classification that we call “elder” were apostles, prophets, evangelists, and pastors and teachers. Paul tells the Ephesian church that these men who proclaim the truth of the Lord are gifts from God. That does not mean that it is always easy to be an ambassador for the Lord, and it does not mean that everyone who has ever spoken for the Lord did so with a great sense of willingness.

The way that we know of this refusal was that Jonah traveled due West by sea, despite the fact that Nineveh was due east by land. Jonah was attempting to sail away from the command of God. For an Old Testament prophet to be perplexed, frustrated, or even overwhelmed is not that unusual. But for a prophet to pick up and run in the opposite direction of God’s calling is not a normal thing, nor is it safe for anyone who is seeking to follow the Lord. God led His own Son into the wilderness to be tempted by Satan, and He went. Later He would go to the cross, though He asked if there was some way out of that horrific calling. We are told by the Lord that we too must follow in the way of the cross. This is surely the way that the Spirit truly leads the Lord’s servants. Nonetheless, the cost of the mission may seem to be too much for us, and we wonder if there is a safe way for us to bow out.

There was no safe way out for the prophet Jonah. He brought danger upon his life because of his refusal to follow God. Not only that, those with him were put in danger by this prophet’s disobedience. Even the pagan sailors on board the ship were beginning to wonder what God was doing as they faced such troubles at sea. As they were trying to understand the disturbance that was threatening their lives, there was only one man on board who had been sent out as a true prophet. The God that Jonah needed to obey controlled the seas.

The pagan captain of the ship expected everyone to turn earnestly to some god or other in the midst of this crisis. Amazingly, there was one man who was trying to sleep through it all; the prophet Jonah. Everyone else was turning to a host deities except for the man who knew in his conscience that he was responsible for this dangerous situation. The sailors cast lots in order to identify the guilty party, and they managed to find their man. Was it one of those frantic prayer warriors pleading with some false god? No it was the prophet of the Lord, Jonah, who simply refused to bring the Word of the Lord to the Assyrians; the mortal enemies of Judah and Israel. The casting of lots among the sailors somehow revealed the source of God’s fury, and it was His servant, the prophet who was running away from his true calling.

Naturally the other men on board wanted to understand what Jonah had done in order to bring everyone on the ship into such danger. Jonah plainly told the story of his unwillingness to serve the Lord by going to Nineveh. His solution to the problem was very straight-forward: “Pick me up and hurl me into the sea.” The crew did not want to send Him overboard. Yet they were forced to do so because of their own desperate condition. They did want to live. It soon became obvious that Jonah would have to go if any of them were to survive this strange judicial ordeal; this trial by drowning.

Prior to throwing Jonah off the ship the sailors turned to the true God in prayer. They wanted Jonah’s Lord to know that they were taking no joy in what was sure to be the death of His servant. But then Jonah did not die. The sea ceased from its raging. It was not the intention of the Lord to end the story of Jonah with the drowning of the prophet. God had a better plan for this reluctant servant. He appointed a great fish to rescue this man, and so Jonah was inside that fish for three days and three nights.

Jonah stands as the supreme example of prophetic unwillingness. He ran away from his mission. Our great Prophet, the Lord Jesus Christ, never ran away from His calling. Even though He had the power to end His suffering and to send legions of angels against His enemies, He played His unique role with a perfectly holy resolve. This was especially confirmed prior to his betrayal in these glorious words: “Not my will, but Yours be done.” Here we find not only the greatest example of dedication ever known. In His death we have the powerful accomplishment of the fullness of our salvation, a salvation that could never have been won for us if Jesus had sailed in some other direction, away from the cross.

Obadiah

This brief book of Biblical prophecy was written concerning Edom. Even though the Lord speaks to this ancient nation, we are not told that the book was written to Edom. Sometimes the Lord says things regarding His enemies, not necessarily for their correction, but for the encouragement of those who are called to persevere in the midst of the world’s persecution against the church. For this reason, these words can be of help to those in any place and time who face the brutality of those who express their hatred against God by attacking His people.

Nations rise and fall, but the Lord is in charge of the events of history. He is the One who is sending forth His decrees from the heavenly council that determine the affairs of nations. Men think they are in charge. They look at their strategic advantages and imagine themselves to be safer than they are. They do not see their weakness rightly. They miss the danger that has come to them from their pride. God looks on the pride of the sons of men. He knows that their hubris is not an advantage for them. They too easily forget about the Creator of the world, and will imagine that they are beyond defeat because of some natural advantage that they possess. But the Lord can bring them down swiftly.

When God fights against a nation, it is His to decide how they will fare as a result of the attack. What will happen to the Edomites is more than can be explained by the typical results of other military engagements. An unusual destruction is envisioned. In that day, the allies that Edom considered to be their friends will show that they have been deceitful. Those who were thought to be trusted enough to sit around the table with the Edomites and eat with them like brothers, will destroy them with alarming treachery. The wisdom and power of the most accomplished men among the descendants of Esau will not be able to anticipate this trouble nor deliver their countrymen from a horrifying slaughter.

It is a bitter pill for a proud nation to suddenly be destroyed. Why would such a thing happen? The answer is very plain. God is the protector of His covenant people. In today’s language, the nations of the world will one day understand the undeniable love of the Lord for His church. It is easy to understand how those who treat the church with brutality in this age might presume that God has no abiding love for His people. It is easy for the world to misunderstand when the Lord disciplines the ones He loves, and when judgment begins with the household of God. But it is never wise to gloat over people that the Lord has called His special possession. He will stand up for them in the day when He comes to judge. He will bring upon the heads of their enemies the very vengeance that they sought to execute against the church.

The Day of the Lord is coming upon the earth in the return of Jesus Christ, an event that will not be missed. The same event that will mean rescue for the Lord’s church will be a great disaster for those who have persecuted them; those who do not know God and who do not obey the gospel. Proud enemies so often imagine that it is safe to play with the Lord’s sacred possessions. They would presume to get drunk using precious vessels set apart for God’s worship. But the Lord is able to bring all their presumptuous power to nothing in a moment.

Using the names of the enemies of ancient days, Obadiah describes a great victory that will come to the elect of God. They who were once humbled and oppressed by powerful forces that railed against them and abused them will find themselves gloriously exalted in Christ Jesus. The Lord of Glory in that day will be none other than the One who faced the wrath of foolishly proud enemies when He died for our sins on the cross. The Kingdom has been given to the ultimate suffering Servant of the Lord, and He has determined that we who have suffered with Him in this age will also reign with Him in glory in the age to come.

Amos 9

When the Lord has been warning His people for many centuries regarding the consequences for covenant disobedience, eventually the end must come. When anything of great consequence happens among the affairs of nations, some leader with authority must give the go-ahead word that sets things in motion in such a way that they cannot be turned back. Here that Word finally comes from the Lord. By His command the very capitals that hold up the structure of His building Israel shall be brought down, and judgment shall fall on the heads of His people.

What is Israel to this God when such a word of death is uttered? On one hand, she would seem to be like just one among many nations of the earth. He speaks of her as He speaks of the Philistines and the Syrians. Yet we find in the closing verses of this book that such an assessment is only for a moment. Even as the word of destruction is uttered by the Lord, we hear this mercy on His lips, “I will not utterly destroy the house of Jacob.” Many will die by the sword, many who have proudly insisted that they would not face disaster, yet that disaster will not be the end of the story of God’s eternal love for His people.

A royal descendant of David, Jesus, the true King of the Jews, had fallen in death, but God had raised Him up to immortality, that He might be the fulfillment of the Lord’s promises to David, and therefore to all the Israel of God. It would not be enough for Him to bring salvation to the Lord’s chosen remnant from Israel and Judah. He would also possess a remnant from all the nations called by the Name of God. It would not even be necessary for those Gentiles to become Jews through circumcision in order to be numbered among the people of resurrection life. They would remain uncircumcised, and thus fulfill the prophecy of Amos 9:12 that they would yet by Gentiles, people of the nations, rather than converts to Judaism marked by circumcision.

This Jesus would bring in a whole new order in His day. He would be the firstfruits of a resurrection age. That age would be glorious. It would be a day of such bounty that the harvest of good things from the renewed land would be continually breaking forth, as if the farmer bringing in the crops would overtake those sowing the seed for the next harvest. The mountains of that transformed earth would drip wine, and would fulfill the longings of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, and all Israel for a land flowing with milk and honey.

This is how the book of Amos closes. There is no changing the fact that the Assyrians would come. They would bring with them the devastating judgment of God against the people of the northern tribes. Sin must be punished. The loss of the nation of Israel would not be nearly enough to satisfy the justice of God. The capitals of God’s righteous wrath would come down upon our Savior on the cross for our salvation. Descendants of the Israelites who rejected Amos would yet come to Christ in a future day, and they would be joined together with Gentiles into a new Israel that would be a great worldwide reality. The world that would eventually be their home would be as new and fresh as their own resurrection bodies, made after the likeness of their Messiah King.

We still have the hope of this prophetic Word today, a Word that has proven to be most sure through the resurrection of Jesus Christ. The reality of the final promise of this book is grounded in the fact of the resurrection of our Lord. We feed our souls today with the news of the coming kingdom, and we turn to God in our day of trouble and opportunity, asking the Lord for the complete fulfillment of this good promise from the close of this book every time we pray, “Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.”

Prayer based on Exodus 26

Father, we are Your people. You have broadened Your tabernacle to include us within Your worshipping assembly. Why should we ignore the joy of worship as if it were nothing? There is a battle within us. Will we view Your holy assembly as the world views us, or will we look beyond our weakness to the coming Day of Glory? Your heavenly tabernacle is full of wonder. Thank you for Your instructions to Your people concerning the earthly tabernacle. It was made according to the pattern shown on the mountain. We long for something more than any earthly place of worship. We need something more than a temporary mercy seat. We long for the permanent place of the fullest security and holiness. Come soon, Lord Jesus!

Prayer based on Jeremiah 18

Creator God, we have been formed by You and fashioned for Your holy purposes. We live for a time here below. The day of our birth is known to You as is the coming day of death. We will serve You as long as we live. We will abandon our evil plans and deeds. We will return to You. How could we have wandered so far away? We have left the good pathway on so many occasions, yet You grant to us eternal hope through Jesus Christ. Show us the truth of Your Word in the day when enemies dig a pit for our lives. Grant us deliverance and hope, and may mortal foes be made friends through faith in Your Son and the power of the cross. Overthrow the old man of sin within us, and bring the new man of resurrection life into the eternal fullness of joy in Your presence forevermore.

Amos 8

In the previous chapter the Lord had given Amos three visions. Two of these were of punishments that, though deserved by Israel, would not come to pass. The third, the vision of the plumb line, that righteous standard in the Law and the Prophets by which the nation would be condemned, would come quickly. The eighth chapter now begins with one more vision that reinforces this message that the judgment of God is overdue. This basket of summer fruit is more than ripe. Israel should have had the fruit of righteousness as an offering to the Lord and a display to the world of the greatness of Jacob’s God. Instead they have unrighteous fruit and the season for fresh fruit is over. The end has come upon this people.

God gave His people a great variety of psalms for their worship. Many of these can be best understood as songs that reveal the culmination of the Lord’s plans for heaven on earth. Others speak of the depth of woe among God’s people as they live in a fallen world, yet trusting in the Lord’s promise to overturn the evil all around them one day. What will Israel sing when the Lord comes in judgment against them? They will wail in that day. They will be overwhelmed by the death around them. Many will consider it best to have no words or sound in their time of horror. They will call for silence rather than songs of any kind.

Though that day had not yet arrived, it would be coming very soon. For the moment there were still many people trampling all over the poor, longing for the Sabbath to be over so that they could cheat others and effectively sell their own people in their lust for their own wealth or comfort. When we remember the Lord’s indictment against the surrounding nations from the beginning of this book, we are reminded that they treated the covenant people as objects, and sold off those in the land of Gilead to their enemies. Even then we noticed that Israel was guilty of the very same thing. What point is there to preserving Israel when they treat one another with the same kind of hatred as their enemies regarded the descendants of Jacob? The Lord announces here that He will not forget any of their deeds.

When armies attack, when people are led away as captives, when there is death everywhere, no one needs to instruct those who are suffering that something very bad is happening. When there is a famine in the land and people do not have food for their children, the problem is obvious, and all who suffer are aware of it. But God’s people will soon suffer a famine of the Word of God. Will anyone care? Amos seems to indicate that many people will go from place to place in order to seek God’s Word. Yet will they still be looking in all the wrong places? Is the nation so ignorant after centuries of willful disobedience that they will still be seeking the false places of worship and swearing by gods that are no gods at all?

We need to remind ourselves of the plain truth that the Apostle Paul speaks of in the early chapters of his letter to the Romans. Everyone is without excuse. We are represented accurately by Adam’s sin and stand justly condemned. Furthermore, God has not been silent. By the things that He has made, He has clearly demonstrated His eternal power and divine nature. Beyond this, God has given His written Word to His people since the days of Moses, and even now, Israel had the spoken Word of Amos. They could not credibly claim to be innocent in their rejection of God and His ways.

God is not content to leave us in our desperation and sin. He is not willing for people to perish in their self-deceit and willful ignorance. He has given to His church the task of exposing darkness with the light of Christ. Every day, until He returns bodily with His promised resurrection kingdom, the Lord will be opening the eyes of the spiritually blind in places all over the earth, and claiming by His grace Jews and Gentiles who meet the Word of God in Christ and find fresh new food for their souls. There is no need for any soul anywhere to suffer a famine of the Word of God today. The Son of God is with His people and sends us forward to speak. God will feed the nations with the Bread of Life.

Amos 7

In fact there are many disasters that could come to us now, but God refuses to bring them to us, because He knows that they are too much for us to bear. In Amos 6 the prophet is given two visions of what Israel deserves that fit into this category. The first is a locust infestation at the most critical time for the development of the new harvest. The second is a judgment by fire so hot that it would not only destroy the land, but also would dry up the sea. In both cases Amos appeals to God, asking the Lord to forgive Israel. He asks for mercy because Israel is small, and would be utterly destroyed by these kinds of devastating judgments. In both cases the Lord announces that these visions shall not come to pass.

Then comes a third vision. This one seems far more tame. It is simply a plumb line used in the construction of a building to make sure that the walls being built upon a foundation are going up straight, so that the building will be structurally sound. God is building His kingdom. He will set a plumb line in the midst of Israel and check to see if what has been built there is in line with good order. God’s Law is a plumb line for the Old Covenant community. Measured against that standard, all the walls of Israel will be found to be crooked and about to fall. What will be left is the Lord’s own foundation in the Word of His prophets. Upon this good and solid footing, a new kingdom might yet be built.

We all think that we want God to visit, and we do not want Him to pass by without embracing us. When the Lord will judge us according to the plumb line of His Law; when He comes as an engineer who will order the demolition of unsound walls, we might instead hope that He will pass by us without coming to close. An embrace from Him might mean our destruction. God announces through Amos that He is finished with passing by Israel. He is coming to judge. He will make a visit that will be painful. The ruling families of the north and their religious sanctuaries will be destroyed.

It is often the case that the one who comes speaking the truth that could bring life is mistaken by others as an enemy of the public good and an adversary of the powers that seem to hold the country together. A prophet can be ignored by an unrighteous nation if he can be kept in a corner and if he does not go too far in offending the powers that be. Amos had apparently crossed the line. One of the priests with close ties to the royal family in the north gave the prophet an ultimatum. He told Amos that it was time for him to return to Judah.

Amos responds with the kind of defense that Paul gives so many centuries later in writing to the Galatians. He says that his words have not come from men, but from God. To reject the message of Amos is to defy the Lord. Perhaps now it is the words of the Lord’s prophet, in accord with God’s Law, that are the precise plumb line for Israel. To kill or intimidate Amos will not change the fact of the Lord’s visitation to judge. In fact, the priest who tried to threaten Amos has a Word that comes just for him; a devastating personal curse for his own rejection of the Lord’s plumb line. Furthermore, Israel will surely go into exile away from its land.

If Jesus had come first to judge, no one could have been saved. All that could have happened in that kind of visitation would have been a rousing condemnation of the entirety of Adam’s race and especially of those who had access to the Law and the Prophets but had still continued in their rebellion against the Lord. This function of condemnation had already been ably accomplished through Adam’s sin and then most clearly through the Law of Moses by which all of Israel and Judah could be rightly condemned. Jesus did not need to come in order to condemn mankind. Mankind was already justly condemned by the Law before the Christ was born.

Jesus came to save. Though He alone could stand as the true plumb line, He took our place as a tottering whitewashed wall that was about to fall. He did this on the cross, and He was crushed there for our iniquities. Nonetheless, His perfect strength and integrity was displayed through that greatest moment of His weakness, and He has provided for the Lord’s new temple the perfect cornerstone in His death and resurrection. Now the foundation of apostles and prophets stands in perfect alignment with this great cornerstone, and we are being built up on that good foundation as a holy temple in the Lord Jesus Christ.

epcblog

Tuesday, September 30, 2008

Micah 1

Monday, September 29, 2008

Jonah 4

Sunday, September 28, 2008

Prayer based on Exodus 27

Saturday, September 27, 2008

Prayer based on Jeremiah 19

Friday, September 26, 2008

Jonah 3

Thursday, September 25, 2008

Jonah 2

Wednesday, September 24, 2008

Jonah 1

Tuesday, September 23, 2008

Obadiah

Monday, September 22, 2008

Amos 9

Sunday, September 21, 2008

Prayer based on Exodus 26

Saturday, September 20, 2008

Prayer based on Jeremiah 18

Friday, September 19, 2008

Amos 8

Thursday, September 18, 2008

Amos 7

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