The Lord is awe-inspiring, fearsome, fascinating, intriguing, majestic, and full of splendor: breathtaking! Here is what I saw of him and what came to my mind and heart in Amos 4:8-12,
"'Many times I struck your gardens and vineyards, I struck them with blight and mildew. Locusts devoured your fig and olive trees, yet you have not returned to me,' declares the Lord. 'I sent plagues among you as I did to Egypt. I killed your young men with the sword, along with your captured horses. I filled your nostrils with the stench of your camps, yet you have not returned to me,' declares the Lord. 'I overthrew some of you as I overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah. You were like a burning stick snatched from the fire, yet you have not returned to me,' declares the Lord. 'Therefore this is what I will do to you, Israel, and because I will do this to you, prepare to meet your God, O Israel.'"
Taboo! What the Lord here has declared is unreservedly taboo in our society today! Banned, barred, forbidden, prohibited, proscribed, impermissible, verboten! We will simply not allow in our culture and society today any notion that moral choices result in God's action against us! To borrow an example from our recent past: any suggestion whatsoever that a plague like AIDS might be an action of God against our embrace of homosexuality is met with the greatest of hostility in our day. Is it? I don't know - he didn't tell me. Do you know for certain it isn't?
What is certain to me is the disregard and outright rejection of both those within and without the church of what God has revealed of himself in the pages of Scripture. He does care about the affairs of mankind on planet earth. He does interact with the nations of the earth. He does bless one nation and bring ruin upon another based on choices they make. As we read in Jeremiah 18:7-10 , "If at any time I announce that a nation or kingdom is to be uprooted, torn down and destroyed, and if that nation I warned repents of its evil, then I will relent and not inflict on it the disaster I had planned. And if at another time I announce that a nation or kingdom is to be built up and planted, and if it does evil in my sight and does not obey me, then I will reconsider the good I had intended to do for it."
In these chapters of Amos, Israel is told, "prepare to meet your God, O Israel." A frightful turn of events for this nation that had turned from her God. The surrounding nations of Damascus, Gaza, Tyre, Edom, Ammon and Moab all faced the judgment of God as well for their treatment of Israel. A sobering reality to contemplate as we make our choices as a nation relative to foreign affairs in the Middle East.
Nowhere throughout the pages of Scripture is there any hint that the inauguration of the New Covenant, the coming of Jesus Christ to earth, his sacrificial death, resurrection and ascension into heaven have altered in any way God's involvement with the nations of the earth. On the contrary, a close examination of the teachings of Jesus Christ reveals God's continued involvement and activity among the nations of planet earth.
Anything of the Lord capture your heart from Scripture today? Share your thoughts of worship with us from your Bible reading today. We'd love to hear from you!
Trevor Fisk
trevor.fisk@gmail.com
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