Monday, July 15, 2019
Announce this to the leaders of Philistia and
to the great ones of Egypt: “Take your seats now on the hills around
Samaria, and witness the chaos and oppression in Israel.” “My
people have forgotten how to do right,” says the Lord. “Their fortresses are filled with wealth taken
by theft and violence. Therefore,”
says the Sovereign Lord, “an enemy is coming!
He will surround them and shatter their defenses. Then he will plunder all their fortresses.” This is what the Lord says: “A shepherd who tries to rescue a sheep from
a lion’s mouth will recover only two legs or a piece of an ear. So it will be for the Israelites in Samaria
lying on luxurious beds, and for the people of Damascus reclining on couches. “Now listen to this, and announce it
throughout all Israel,” says the Lord, the Lord God of Heaven’s Armies. “On the very day I punish Israel for its
sins, I will destroy the pagan altars at Bethel. The horns of the altar will be cut off and
fall to the ground. And I
will destroy the beautiful homes of the wealthy—their winter mansions and their
summer houses, too—all their palaces filled with ivory,” says the Lord. Listen to me, you fat cows living in Samaria,
you women who oppress the poor and crush the needy, and who are always calling
to your husbands, “Bring us another drink!” The Sovereign Lord has sworn this by his
holiness: “The time will come when you
will be led away with hooks in your noses.
Every last one of you will be dragged away like a fish on a hook! You will be led out through the ruins of
the wall; you will be thrown from your fortresses,” says the Lord. “Go ahead and offer sacrifices to the
idols at Bethel. Keep on disobeying at
Gilgal. Offer sacrifices each morning, and
bring your tithes every three days. Present your bread made with yeast as an
offering of thanksgiving. Then give your
extra voluntary offerings so you can brag about it everywhere! This is the kind of thing you Israelites love
to do,” says the Sovereign Lord. Amos
3:9 – 4:5
When God
extended the invitation to Egypt and Philistia, arch-enemies of Israel, to take
a front row seat and watch the humiliation of defeat that God was engineering
to straighten-out his rowdy children, it should have brought waves of fear in
Jerusalem and Judea; if anyone knew what the powerful wrath of God looks like
in action, it was the children of Abraham.
These former slaves, people who had nothing, were led out of Egypt by
Moses and a miraculous GPS cloud by day and pillar of fire by night. They watched as the Red Sea swallowed
Pharaoh’s storm troopers who were in hot pursuit. They saw 23,000 of their fellow Israelites
swallowed by the earth’s crust and fire when Korah led a rebellion against
Moses. They watched thousands die at the
bite of venomous snakes when they complained against God. These people had seen God’s wrath. But they had forgotten all that and forgotten
how to do right. Their sin was playing
at church! They kept the rituals but forgot how to do right; they
were going to re-learn!
I have
never claimed to be a prophet. However,
there is this foreboding deep within my spirit about the state of the current
culture in America which I cannot shake.
It has amazing parallels to Israel of old, those who were blessed by
Heaven’s hand, and descended into Hell’s ways.
They saw ways to accumulate wealth by oppressing others; they refined
and strengthened their hold on the weak in order to become stronger, lazier,
and increasingly self-indulgent. Justice
was a laughable joke, and the powerful saw to it their power would require
others to look to them as God.
We
dole out a bit of our resources here and there to the poverty-stricken
third-world countries, but it is little more than dangling the carrot in front
of the enslaved mule to keep him walking to the beat of our drum.
For You Today
While it is true there are many thousands, perhaps millions of Americans
who much more truly reflect the Jesus-following life, generous, gracious, and
God-honoring, what we see coming out of Washington is a 21st century
God-invitation for wrathful judgment.
May He have mercy in His wrath; we stand in need of it!
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Title Image: Pixabay.com Unless otherwise noted, Scripture used from
The
New Living Translation©
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