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Devotional thoughts (Monday through Thursday mornings) from the pastor of Exeter Presbyterian Church in Exeter, NH // Sunday Worship 10:30am // 73 Winter Street

Friday, September 19, 2008

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 a flood of divine judgment comes over the land, will anyone be able to ignore what is happening. It will be as obvious as the final Day of Judgment that the Lord will one day bring upon the earth. The imagery of that final Day of the Lord is borrowed by Amos in order to describe the trouble that will soon come upon Israel. It will be accompanied by the deepest kind of mourning that people can experience.

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?

The people of God need to seek the real God. But after centuries of rejecting the true temple of the Lord in Jerusalem and turning away from the growing testimony of the Law and the Prophets, could the northern kingdom be absolved of their guilt simply by pleading ignorance? If they were full of zeal, would it still be the case that they simply would not know where to turn in order to find the truth and to do what was right?

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.

Yet the Lord was not content to leave us with only these witnesses to His truth. At just the right time He sent His Son as the incarnate Word. In the revelation of Jesus Christ, we are met by One who is the perfectly accurate image of the invisible God. We can see in Him what that love is which is the fulfillment of the Law. We are called to follow Him who gave His life for our salvation.

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.

posted by Pastor Magee @ 6:00 AM

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