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.

Introduction to Genesis

The Story of Genesis

1-3

With this first book of the Bible we begin a five year adventure. That may seem like a long time, but it is not nearly as long as the time it took for this wonderful collection of sixty-six books to be written. That took many hundreds of years.

The first five books of the Bible were written by Moses. We begin the story of God and His people with a work that was written probably around 1500 BC or so. We are obviously beginning in the middle of God’s story. If fact, even when we begin with the creation of the world, we are still not at the beginning of the story.

Before the world was made, God is. From eternity past, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is. God is eternal, and so are His plans. All His decrees are established before the opening events of Genesis.

The first three chapters of the Bible are very important. Here we have in seed form everything else that will have its flower in the rest of the Bible and in the rest of everything that the Lord will do.

In these opening chapters we see that God created everything, and that human beings were created in God’s image. We have a very special place in God’s works. Human beings were created to rule everything else in creation under God and for God. God granted to the first man the gift of a woman, with the design that they would serve the Lord together.

God also established an arrangement between humanity and God. Man was to obey God and live. Disobedience would lead to death. This arrangement or covenant between God and man was radically violated when the first man ate of the forbidden fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. This one act brought about great pain, suffering, and death into the world.

God’s judgment against humanity was immediately answered by the announcement of a special eternal arrangement between the Father and the Son to overturn evil in God’s plan of a comprehensive salvation through His plan of grace.

4-11

In the next eight chapters, God shows the devastation of the fall of humanity in Adam. We learn of envy, murder, arrogance, and all kinds of abuse. But we also hear about those who are calling upon the name of the Lord.

God speaks in a summary way about our deadly depravity in the beginning of chapter six. He then displays His judgment against the earth in the account of the flood. Even here we see worship and hope in the rescue of Noah and his family, for Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord.

After the flood, we are given a sense of a new beginning in the Lord’s covenant with Noah, His posterity, and all of the earth. Here is the plan for order in a fallen world. The Lord will hold back His judgment for a future day, and the waters would never again become a flood to destroy the earth.

Yet immediately in that generation we see that sin is still in the world in a devastating way. Then generations later we see a society working together to make an unauthorized way to eternity in the heavens. The Lord scatters humanity at this time and the nations and peoples of the world come into being.

From this point we see the movement of generations toward the coming of one man who will follow in the way of faith. He will be the beginning of the line that will lead to the chosen nation of Israel as well as many other nations.

12-50

The remainder of Genesis tells the story of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Jacob’s sons, especially Judah and Joseph. The recurrent story over these four amazing generations is man’s inability and God’s sovereign power. At every point along the way of the account of God’s people it would appear that all hope was lost. Yet the Lord would accomplish His will to bring about a perfect salvation through a descendant of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Judah.

At the end of the book of Genesis we are again at one of these points of trouble when it would appear that all hope might be lost. The people of God are in Egypt and will soon be slaves far from the land that the Lord has promised to give to them. The book closes with the solemn promise of God’s people to carry the bones of Joseph to the Promised Land in a day yet to come.

Genesis and the Story of the Bible

The Lord’s sovereignty over everything is wonderfully exhibited in this opening book of the Bible. God is the creator of the heavens and the earth. God is the one who ordered His creation, and particularly ordered His relationship with humanity. God is the one who judges good and evil. God is the one who brings curse and blessing. God is the author of all promise and hope.

The Lord reveals the content of our hope little by little and in various ways. He announces that His great promise will be accomplished through a child of the woman, who will defeat the enemy of God who was somehow in the world before man had sinned. He announces through three covenant oath ceremonies that it will be through the shedding of the blood of a God/Man substitute that the Lord’s ultimate victory will come. He shows the importance of faith in the promises of God for those who would be credited with righteousness. He displays the pathway to exaltation through the valley of deep humiliation. He grants that his servants would have faith in some good thing that would go beyond this mortal life.

In this book God also begins the story of Israel, from whom will come this great God/Man Messiah. At the end of this book, so much has been accomplished in God’s long plan of redemption. Still it is clear that it is the Lord Himself who must help us to take the next step of faithfulness. This sovereign Lord will accomplish all of His holy will. We are His beloved children. He is the Creator, the Sustainer, and the Redeemer.

Amos 6

Nations may be full of fear concerning imagined dangers, and soon find their concerns evaporate into nothing. On the other hand, there are times when people in one place or another have thought of themselves as so strong and well-positioned that they supposed themselves to be beyond danger, only to be defeated by a force that they should have better anticipated and prepared for. The northern kingdom was at ease in the time of Amos, and they considered themselves safe and secure. Amos instructs the notable men of Israel to look at other nations around them and to learn the lessons that could be gathered from their situations.

The day of disaster is nearer than they recognize. The biggest danger for the covenant people is not their ignorance of the power of those human forces that may soon be arrayed against them. The biggest danger comes to them when they forget about the God who brought them together and made them out of nothing. Israel was at ease, though the discipline of God would soon come. Heedless of earlier warnings, her leaders were resting their heads on downy pillows, eating and drinking, enjoying their music and their comforts. The Lord is not an ascetic philosopher. Good things in the created order are gifts of God to be enjoyed. Then what was the problem in Israel? They should have been mourning over the spiritual and moral depravity of the Lord’s people. The leaders of the nation refused to lead the people in true repentance, but instead lived as those who were full of the blessings of the Lord as if they had not a care in the world. They would be the first to be led into exile. The party would be over soon and their life of luxury would be gone.

God does not make false threats. Though He is slow to anger, He will do the things that He has promised, and His warnings should be taken very seriously. When He swears by Himself, it is because there is nothing greater than Him by which He can take a solemn oath. He accommodates Himself to this custom among men to swear by something great in order to reinforce the fact that He is very serious about His intentions. In this case He swears by Himself in order for us to consider how determined He is about the destruction He is bringing upon His people after these many centuries of patience. He hates the pride of His people and the strongholds of Israel, and He will turn the nation over to her enemies.

The strength and pomp of men can be so very impressive. We are easily stirred by public displays of what appears to be overwhelming power and wealth. When this happens in our own hearts it is because we have lost track of the big picture of God’s plan which is so clearly revealed to us in God’s Word. From the time of the fall of mankind in Adam’s transgression we have known that we are all on the wrong side of God’s settled determination that those who disobeyed in Adam would die. We are all in that group.

Israel had forgotten her reason for being. She had become such a poor display of the truth. God had not forgotten, nor had He given up on His plan to bring the fullness of life to those who were called by His Name. While this requires a winnowing process of separating the wheat from the chaff even today, no matter how weak the church may seem, the Lord will be true to His Word. Life has come to us through the Seed of the woman, and especially through His sacrificial death on the cross. God will be glorified in a marvelous display of the fullest salvation, though many who thought of themselves as first will in fact be last.

Amos 5

When we hear a prophet say that a nation is fallen to rise no more, we are expecting that this is one of the Lord’s oracles against some foreign power. Surely the Lord is speaking about Babylon, Moab, or Edom. It is so deeply disappointing to hear those words of judgment spoken against Israel. Yet even though the northern kingdom would never rise again as a geo-political power, and even though there would be great loss of life, the opening verses of this difficult chapter have another side to them. 100 would survive out of a city of 1000. The hope for Israel in the day of Amos is a remnant hope.

But this was not the case for Israel. Those who spoke for righteousness and justice were rejected, because the people hated the truth. They pursued their own self-interest and seemed to be doing well. The Lord reminds them that their prosperity can be taken away in a moment. It is one thing to build a beautiful house. It is another to live peacefully in it to the end of your days. When powerful people in any society are so obvious in their corruption, smart individuals learn to keep their mouths shut, lest they lose their heads. That may work for some time, but eventually that kind of injustice catches up with a society, even if it may take a few generations.

There is always another way in obedience to the Lord, but when a whole land moves toward corruption it is very hard to turn that kind of disaster around. Yet courageous people need to stand up and do what is right if there is to be any change. God is in charge, but has He ever turned around a people without first turning around a person? Someone needs to do the simple obvious things. Seek good. Hate evil. Establish justice. Maybe the Lord will use our small steps to do what only He can do.

People may think that if they can keep on worshipping, and privately and quietly attempting to live in a way that is a little more faithful than the average person, at least they will be safe. After all, look how bad some of those other people are? But what happens when God says to His worshipers as a whole, “I take no delight in your solemn assemblies.” What is needed is a waterfall of newly-discovered justice and righteous; something that would flow from heaven like an eternal stream of blessedness. Where is the spring from which waters like that will flow? Will it come from the people who were worshipping false gods even when the Lord was supplying bread from heaven to feed them?

Several hundred years after Amos, a child was born. That one righteous answer to the deluge of human sin and societal corruption has made all the difference for Israel and for the church throughout the world and throughout the centuries that followed. What can one man do? Generally one person within a dirty society is simply swamped by everything around Him. But Jesus did not come just as one man in a society. He came as the new Man, the God-Man of an entirely new resurrection kingdom. Yet He did His work here below within the environment of the Old Covenant order, though the northern kingdom was long gone. He grew up in Nazareth and ministered around the shores of Galilee. It was there among the passing kingdoms of this world that a new world of life was first proclaimed and believed.

We have come to embrace the message that He preached. When God visited the cross of Christ in judgment so long ago, something most amazing and unexpected took place. The King of a very powerful Kingdom gave us something to stand up for. Through the death of Christ we turn against sin in ourselves and others and say, “Enough!” Through the miracle of an empty tomb we have real and powerful hope. It is amazing that we would still be enticed by some lesser hope that would point us to some other Messiah, or some other way to beat the decay of death all around us. Jesus is the answer. By Him alone we can face the darkest days of societal disintegration with the confidence that the way of corruption is on the way out, and the way of righteousness and heavenly justice will soon be established. The remnant hope has become a most glorious and victorious eternal kingdom through the life and death of one Man.

Amos 4

It is not that the people were irreligious. They had holy places where they thought that they were worshiping a host of gods, perhaps even thinking that Jehovah, the god of their fathers, would look favorably upon their ceremonies. God tells those involved in these endeavors that they go to their special spots only to multiply their transgressions, no matter how much they imagine that they are serving Him. They love to have all kinds of offerings, sacrifices, and tithes for God or gods, but that cannot change the fact that they have abandoned the true Word of the Lord.

If any system of devotion is to work with God it must be done in accord with His will and it must have some ground of real obedience that makes it efficacious. Israel had problems on both of these points. They were not following God’s way of worship, which at this point in the history of revelation would have required them to travel to the temple in Jerusalem for the festivals and to bring their sacrifices and tithes to that place. More importantly they had no appreciation for the obedience of a coming Messiah, through whom they could have peace with the Lord. The knowledge of that kind of deep peace grounded in the perfect obedience of a substitute leads men and women to repentance, and there was no sense of that change of heart and life among the worshipers in the north.

They certainly should have known that something was deeply wrong. The Lord had already sent them many extraordinary signs of his displeasure. None of these seemed to move them in the proper direction. They lived under a particular time in the covenant life of God’s people when the words of Moses concerning blessings and curses in the land should have been particularly operative. If there were problems with food or rain in one place or another, these were things that should have caused them to wonder. If their crops were destroyed by pests and their fruit trees damaged through some agent of harm, if there was sickness or trouble in battle, they should have humbled themselves before God, and sought to turn away from sin. If one town or another faced some unexpected disaster, someone somewhere should have been moved to return to God, but they did not seem to do this.

What the Lord required of His people should not have been a mystery. Amos was not the first prophet among them. Others had expounded the Word of the Lord over several generations. Many of the things that people do against the Lord and His people do not even require any special Word from God in order to be exposed as sin. Our souls know what is wrong. The kinds of truth that are summarized in the Ten Commandments are written upon our hearts, and are known well to all who will be honest about it. Yet people continue to sin against God though they know they are fighting the glorious Creator and Sustainer of their lives.

God created the mountains, the wind, and the waves of the sea. God is the author of light and darkness. He is the authority over heaven and earth and He has a great host of men and angels at His disposal to be used for His purposes. How could any of us stand in His presence were He to come in judgment against us for our sins? We would be the ones hiding in the mountains hoping for the rocks to fall upon us so that our misery would be over. The problem is that the challenges that we would face on account of our sin would not only be for our lives here on earth. How could we stand against almighty God if our souls were to encounter Him in His holiness beyond the grave? How can we live in the coming age of resurrection if the Lord is angry against us because of our sin?

We need to perform true ceremonies of worship and the duties of holy living with an honest heart of devotion to God, but we especially need some solid ground to stand on in any of our religious acts of devotion or service. We need the Rock of the sinless Messiah who can be counted for us as acceptable in the sight of His Father. We need that obedience and suffering credited to our account, so that we can move out of the bondage of our overwhelming disobedience and into the liberty of a new and growing sanctification. This is what Christ has provided for us. Let us worship Him today and always with gladness of heart and the sincerity of humble repentance and service.

More thoughts on Matthew 25 and the least of these my brothers

The final teaching episode in Matthew's gospel (yesterday's sermon) is a challenge to us on many levels. Before I move past it I want to share two more thoughts:

1. Concerning salvation and the Lord's acknowledgment of our acts of charity upon His return:

We are granted eternal life according to the electing love of the Father, the perfect righteousness and atoning death of the Son, the application of the benefits of Christ to us by the Holy Spirit. Salvation is of God. We are those who can be called "blessed of My Father" by Jesus at His return, and the resurrection kingdom that we will be part of was prepared for us before the foundation of the world, before we ever had a chance to believe anything or do anything.

We are justified based on the merits of Christ. For the elect, our participation in the true kingdom of God is received and displayed in this current age through true faith, which is further displayed in works of faithful obedience to the things that Christ has commanded. We are known by the fruits of the love of God in our lives. During this age our lives more or less display the fact of the Lord's electing love at work in our lives through the church and to the church, and even beyond the church to the world. At the return of Christ and the beginning of the resurrection age, it would seem that even our smallest acts of faithful charity to one another will be openly acknowledged by the Lord despite all of our confusion and sin. This will all ultimately be to the praise of God's grace, as we cast any crowns that we have before Him, for any good in us is surely of Him. By His grace we have believed in our hearts, confessed with our lips, and cared for one another according to our deeds. All glory to God.

2. Concerning the force of this passage for our way of life now:

The Lord identifies himself with the church. We are the ones he calls "My brothers." He especially speaks of being present among us as "the least of these My brothers." When we do something for those among us in His church who are of little regard among men and are in great need, then we have touched the face of God, and visited with Jesus Christ. This is a great privilege.

Those who are able to take joy in such opportunities the most are those who have made the most progress in seeing themselves as among "the least of these" concerning their own salvation, and who are most aware of the overwhelming truth that they were hungry for the bread of life, and that Christ has fed them. More than than being hungry, they were dead in their trespasses and sins, but God who is rich in mercy, because of the great love with which He loved them, has made them alive. By grace they have been saved through faith. These are the ones who will have the most joy in serving the Lord now.

Jesus Christ mercifully reveals to us in this final teaching episode of Matthew's gospel that He will be among us especially in those who are in the greatest need. Somehow He can be "visible" to us in their faces. That's a happy thing to know.

Though we may be confused in some ways about some of the theological connections between God's grace and our faith and works as these things are explained to us in the various passages of the Bible, we need have no confusion about serving the lowest in the Lord's kingdom. We should do that today with a new sense of joy.

Prayer based on Exodus 25

Lord God, we pray that You will receive our lives today. We offer them up to You. We are a sanctuary for Your Holy Spirit. We thank You for this wonderful privilege. We long for Your presence and Your power. Father, You have granted to us a testimony of Your Kingdom. We will hear Your Word and believe. Meet with us as we gather in Your presence. Speak with us, and tell us everything that we must learn about You and about Your holy ways. Add Your Spirit to Your Word, that Your people might follow You. May Your church be a bright lampstand to many. Grant us oil from on high that we might be a shining light into a dark world. At just the right time, purify us, and we will be perfectly holy forever.

Prayer based on Jeremiah 17

Father God, our sin has brought great trouble upon us. How can we be effective and fruitful for Your purposes if we will not turn away from iniquity? Yet we will trust in You. Grant to us a new repentance based upon the power of the cross. You search hearts, and You bring life. Father we desire that we might be sustained by You, our fountain of living water. We turn away from death. Heal us and save us. You are our refuge in the day of disaster. Sin and death have come against us, but Your Son has won a great victory for us. You are our strong and eternal Sabbath rest. We have come to the Holy Redeemer who has accomplished our Salvation. Therefore, we humbly confess our sin before You, and bring our lives as a thank offering to You. We shall live, for in Your life, we have life.

Amos 3

God has a special love for Israel. Therefore He intends to punish her. There is something about that kind of thinking that is very surprising to us. We expect that God would treat a beloved people by overlooking their faults. That certainly is true as well. The Lord is slow to anger. He does not always deal with His people as their sins deserve. Yet it is also the case that love must eventually lead to correction when the beloved is stuck in great transgression and will not repent. We need to accept the fact that judgment begins with the household of God, and receive the Lord’s correction of us as evidence of his special love for us.

There is a reason that disaster is coming upon Israel. God’s providence with His special people is not just a chance encounter of friends along a road. There was a clear understanding based on the Lord’s speech, and now Israel’s sin is about to meet up with the Lord’s judgment by a divine appointment. God is a holy Lion who has found His prey. Israel cannot pretend to be surprised by what is happening here. She is a bird that has stepped into a snare. Are we now thinking that the snare will not spring up from the ground, though it has been set with the purpose of capturing the bird, and the bird has set it off? There is a God who is in charge of the affairs of men and nations. He raises up strong powers, and moves them according to his appointed purposes. The coming of the Assyrians is not a random blowing of the winds of fortune. The Lord has done it.

This has all been revealed through the prophets for many centuries. Israel cannot claim to be uninformed. Even now the Lord has raised up Amos to speak His message. Will the people not fear and repent? The events that are coming should not be thought of as surprising. Nor will they be hidden from the enemies all around Israel. The Lord’s discipline of His people will be accomplished in the full view of the surrounding nations. They have become a people that do not know how to do right, and who are full of violence and robbery. They will face a powerful enemy, and the Egyptians and the Philistines will witness the demise of the northern kingdom.

God will punish Israel for her transgressions. They had put their hopes in false worship. They would not follow the Lord’s instruction to gather together in Jerusalem to meet with Him. They allowed their conflict with their brothers to the south to be more important to them than the Word of the Lord which commanded them to travel south for the temple worship that God had appointed. Their false altars have not helped them. Nor have their great riches and possessions saved them from the Assyrians. When the Lord determines to discipline His people, no amount of false worship or worldly riches can protect us from His loving chastisement.

We do not get to choose the Lord’s plans for our lives or for His church. We might imagine another way of relating with Him. This is not ours to invent. The Israelites thought that they could worship God their way, and they imagined that they could serve Him though they ignored His statutes. The assault of the Assyrian empire against them stood as a powerful answer from God concerning these false theories of life. The people of Israel ran into the unchanging fact of the living sovereign God. He will not change Himself to accommodate our ideas of what ought to be. We must take His Word seriously and listen to His servants while there is yet time.

We need much grace, and the Lord will supply it. The devastating and public atonement for us has come in the cross so many years ago. How will we stand if we ignore such a great salvation? If Israel had no excuse to ignore the Word of the Lord, surely we have no excuse when God has spoken so plainly and wonderfully for us through the gift of His Son. If we need to be disciplined through the events of our lives in order for us to see these things more clearly, that is surely an expression of God’s loving-kindness toward His beloved people.

Amos 2

The Edomites were already condemned by the Lord in the first chapter of this book. They were the receivers of the abused people of the Lord, and they were indicted for their furious wrath against their fellow descendants of Abraham and Isaac. In another book of the Bible, the Lord goes so far as to say, “Jacob (Israel) I loved, but Esau (Edom) I hated.” Yet here the nation of Moab is condemned not because of their treatment of the Israelites, but because of their actions concerning the bones of the king of Edom.

God hates death, though His Son was willing to suffer it in order to bring us eternal life. The Lord is all about life, and He hates it when men go crazy in their pursuit of the death of even their worst enemies. The Lord is in charge of vengeance. Men must not take these matters into their own hands without the Word of God directly instructing them to act as His agent of vengeance. When the King of Moab presumes to be the Lord of vengeance and shows vicious wrath against the bones of another king, he has gone too far.

They are not alone in their special guilt. The main focus of this book is the northern nation of Israel and the Lord’s indictment against that nation begins now. Like Phoenicia and the Philistines they are ready to sell people. They do it for such a small price, and they sin against their own kinsmen. They should care for the poor among them, but the trample them in the dust. They should protect their women, but they are engaged in cult prostitution and drunkenness. In all of this they are just as bad as the nations around them.

Their guilt before God is compounded by their exalted position as His covenant people. It was God who gave them everything they have. It was He who rescued them from Egypt and brought them into the Promised Land. Yet they have refused to hear the Lord’s prophetic Word and they have disgraced the Name of God with their defiling religious ordinances. Like Judah, they have despised the Lord’s voice, and like all of the nations around them, they have treated God’s people as objects for their own use, and have been part of the death team that has brought such great destruction upon this fallen earth.

The descendants of Adam are prone to pride. They forget that they are dust, and then they grind others into the dust. They forget that they have been redeemed at great cost, and then they buy and sell the people of God. One might assume that our disobedience would be the end of every story. Yet the Lord would not speak through Amos unless there was some testimony being given to a way of life beyond the burnt remains of an unrighteous king’s bones. Surely there must be some hope for us beyond our own filthy sin. The prophets tell us what we deserve, but they must be talking to us for a reason.

The salvation that we long for will never come through our own strength. God’s judgment is coming, and is pressing hard against us. It would surely crush us. God is coming fast against us. We could never run so fast that we would get away safely through our great speed. God’s arrows are poised to be released. Each one will be devastating and will reach its mark. Yet there is a Substitute who will take the point of the spear. He will not run from the punishment that we deserve. He will be crushed for our iniquities, and we shall be healed.

In terms of what we deserve, we must admit that Judah and Israel are no better off than the vicious King of Moab. Yet God has lavished His electing love upon us and has paid the amazing price necessary for our salvation in the blood of His own Son. Men came against Jesus, the King of the Jews, with all the hatred that the King of Moab displayed for the King of Edom. Even we would have gladly destroyed the Lord of Glory with our own presumptuous wrath, as if we could have brought some case against Him. Yet by His grace our foolish hearts have been softened. We have been won by the story of the suffering Servant, and we have been captivated by the love of our dying Savior. Like Him and through Him, though we are dead, we yet live. This fact is very pleasing to the God who loves life.

Amos 1

The prophet Amos brought a very bold message to the northern kingdom in his day. He came to them not so much as a brash prophet from the southern kingdom of Judah, (though he was from the south), but as a humble follower of a great King. He came as a voice from heaven and as a representative of God. His boldness was not in being a natural-born leader, but in being a true disciple of a heavenly Warrior. When Christ came to save, He came with a strong message, and yet He embodied the perfection of humility. These two things, boldness of speech and humility of person, are not incongruous. They are necessary for those who would rightly represent the Lord among His people. His representatives must be followers more than leaders, followers of the great Shepherd of the sheep. Amos does not come as an ambassador of Uzziah, the King of Judah, but as the spokesman for the Lord. The Lord was roaring from His heavenly sanctuary. He could make the earth wither in a moment. Everyone must list to His Word and follow Him.

Each indictment in these early verses follows a given pattern. There is the identification of the nation within the formulaic words “For three transgressions, and for four.” There is the announcement of the Lord’s settled determination to bring punishment upon that land. There is a representative infraction that is different for each nation mentioned. Finally there is a statement of the trouble that is coming, in all cases linked to the military victory of the Assyrians that would mean destruction and exile for so many nations in that day.

It is the representative transgression that is most interesting to consider. Of course, all of these nations are guilty of more than three or four sins. What is it that the Lord sees at the head of the list of their offensive ways? The Syrians with their capital of Damascus (not to be confused with Assyrians and their capital of Ninevah), have shown a fierce cruelty against the neighboring tribes of Israel in that part of the land known as Gilead, east of the Jordan river. The Philistines have carried another nation into exile, delivering them to their captors in a third nation. The Phoenicians have done the same thing, but have the added offence that they betrayed another nation in violation of covenant obligations. The Edomites are the ones who bought this exiled people from the Philistines and the Phoenicians, and they did so not to merely profit from them, but to destroy them. They hated the Israelites, though they were brothers, since Jacob the ancestor of the Israelites and Esau the ancestor of the Edomites were twin brothers. The Ammonites are indicted because of their atrocities against pregnant women in this same region of Gilead as a further extension of their desire to displace future generations of the descendants of Jacob from this contested region.

All of these nations have hated God’s people. They have been willing to use their power with no sense of the God of the earth, who is also the God of the people of Gilead. They exhibit no awareness of the limits of their authority. They do not seem to know that the Lord is able to bring the nations of the world into judgment. They have used their military force to accomplish their own brutal desires, but what will they do when a more powerful adversary comes against them? The Assyrians will soon do this very thing, and these other nations will have no one to defend them against that powerful empire. They will be sent off into exile, and will find out what it is like to be a victim who is trapped in the hands of a mighty and ruthless enemy.

The Son of God knows what it is like to have God Himself as an adversary. This is what happened on the cross. An Enemy far more terrifying than the armies of the Assyrians came upon His own beloved son for us. He came as a Lion against the prey. He was like a raging fire against our Christ. He came as a devouring foe against our Messiah. He blew like the worst tempest against the One on the cross who was both the Son of Man and the Son of God. This is what was necessary in order for our sin to be atoned for.

The Lion of the tribe of Judah died for us. Yet He emerged from that Day of Judgment victorious. In His resurrection we have life and hope. Now we are bold to speak as those who are His followers. We do not have to muster up the strength to be natural-born leaders or amazing strongmen. We are followers of One who is very capable of leading. His Word may be rejected by the nations of the world. Many may revile Him and they may brutally mistreat those who love His appearing. Yet He ever lives to save us, and He has all power and authority. It is His to lead His Gilead. It is ours to follow Him.

Grand Canyon, Arizona

Thank you for your prayers. We had a great vacation. We look forward to seeing everyone this Sunday or before.

May God's richest blessing be poured out on you.

Prayer based on Titus 3

Faithful Lord, we thank You for the grace that You are giving to Your church day by day. We consider our lives of sin in former days, and we thank You for the measure of sanctification that we have come to know at present. We still feel the troubles that continue to come to us through the foolishness of our remaining sin. Help us to take the spiritual battle in front of us more seriously. Our days on this on this earth are few, and we desire to use them in a more godly way.

Prayer based on Titus 2

Great God, help our elders as they work with the various groups within your congregations. We pray that You would also provide other godly men and women in the churches who are willingly submitting to Your Word. Such believers will be so helpful to us as friends and mentors. Teach us through their good example how we may live more godly lives as those who love Your Son and are truly zealous for good works.

Prayer based on Titus 1

Lord God, we thank You for Your Son and Your Word. We ask that You would raise up faithful pastors and elders throughout Your church. Please provide us with those who will be gracious and capable in the faithful discharge of their important spiritual duties. May this good provision bring about a wonderful growth in holiness and faithfulness among Your people, to the glory of Your Name.

Prayer based on Joel 3

Glorious God, a great age is coming. When Your Son returns to judge, He will surely save us from this evil day. You will bring judgment upon men and nations. You will purify Your church, and You will reveal all of the sons of God. You will judge all the nations. We wait for You, O Lord. We turn to You now, trusting You for today, and believing Your Word for tomorrow. You are the Lord, our God. You shall make Your new Jerusalem perfectly holy, and You will bless us forever and ever. We will eat and drink with perfect peace and joy. You dwell with Your people, both now and forevermore.

Prayer based on Joel 2

Father, help us to get the point of personal and societal disaster. Is not the Day of Your Judgment coming upon the whole earth in due time? Will we be ready for that Day? Locusts destroy the produce of the land. Invading armies take Your people captive and destroy life as we know it. Yet even in difficult days of trouble, the call goes out to Your people. We can repent today. We can return to You. We can gather together in solemn assembly. Spare Your people! Hear us, O Lord, and be jealous for Your children, for You love us. You can remove invading armies in a moment. You can give health to the land again, and restore what the locust has consumed. You can bring about a day of blessing that is beyond anything that we ask for or imagine. You are the Lord God. The Day is surely coming when we will all be full of the spirit like the prophets of old. On that same Day there will be frightening signs of Your judgment in the heavens and upon the earth. Yet all who call upon Your name shall be saved. We call upon Your Name now, O Lord, for You have provided Your perfect Son, through whom we have bold access to Your heavenly sanctuary. You have called us to Yourself. You will bless us forever.

Prayer based on Joel 1

Lord God, when You sound the alarm to Your people through Your ambassadors will we listen? Will we give attention to Your word of warning? When You call us home for Your fatherly care and discipline, will we humble ourselves and return to You? Thank You for Your Word. We should wail over our sin. We should mourn because of the trouble that we face in our life and mission. We should gather together in a solemn assembly and call upon Your Name. Hear us, O Lord, when we cry out to You.

Prayer based on Hosea 14

Father God, we return to You with sincere sadness for our sin, but abundant joy because of Your greatness. We think of Your mercy to the orphan, and we love You. You will make Your children beautiful. We will flourish under Your protective love. Your love and greatness are eternal. Your ways are right, and we will walk in them forever. Please pick us up when we stumble, and rescue us when the battle of this age is more than we can bear.

Prayer based on Hosea 13

Great God, we have a new hope in Your Son Jesus Christ. Idols cannot help us, and we will not trust in them. You are the Savior who brought us through the wilderness. Your Son is Lion of the tribe of Judah. He will save us. He will not devour Your elect. We confess that we have been unwise sons and daughters. Yet through the resurrection of our great Atoning Sacrifice, the sting of death has been removed far from us. We have a Redeemer in Jesus Christ, and He will never forsake us.

Prayer based on Hosea 12

Lord of Hosts, how could Your people have ever have thought that it was wise to treat powerful nations as trusted fathers? How could it have ever seemed wise to forsake You, the only true God and Father of Your people? Yet we have loved sin. The nations care little about our iniquity, but You are holy. You have spoken through the prophets. You have made it clear to Your loved ones that we must live according to Your Word. Rescue us not only from our enemies, but also from our rebellious sin nature and from our disgraceful deeds.

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

Wednesday, September 17, 2008

Introduction to Genesis

Amos 6

Tuesday, September 16, 2008

Amos 5

Monday, September 15, 2008

Amos 4

More thoughts on Matthew 25 and the least of these my brothers

Sunday, September 14, 2008

Prayer based on Exodus 25

Saturday, September 13, 2008

Prayer based on Jeremiah 17

Friday, September 12, 2008

Amos 3

Thursday, September 11, 2008

Amos 2

Wednesday, September 10, 2008

Amos 1

Grand Canyon, Arizona

Tuesday, September 09, 2008

Prayer based on Titus 3

Monday, September 08, 2008

Prayer based on Titus 2

Sunday, September 07, 2008

Prayer based on Titus 1

Saturday, September 06, 2008

Prayer based on Joel 3

Friday, September 05, 2008

Prayer based on Joel 2

Thursday, September 04, 2008

Prayer based on Joel 1

Wednesday, September 03, 2008

Prayer based on Hosea 14

Tuesday, September 02, 2008

Prayer based on Hosea 13

Monday, September 01, 2008

Prayer based on Hosea 12

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