Executive Producer

John

Podcast Introduction

Today is prophesy Friday,. We’ll read Amos 5-9. I’ll have a brief introduction before reading each chapter, and after the reading I’ll have some comments. And of course I’ll have an “On This Date In Church History” segment for you, too. I’m calling today’s episode  “God Is Not Hiding."

Design: Steve Webb | Photo: Maarten van den Heuvel on Unsplash

Comments on Amos

Thoughts on Amos 5

In chapter five, verse four, God tells Israel, “Seek me so you can live!” When we sincerely pursue a relationship with God, we will find Him and have eternal life. In the book of Jeremiah, God said, “If you look for me wholeheartedly, you will find me.” Jesus said, “Ask and it will be given to you, seek and you will find, knock and the door will be opened for you.” 

God is not hiding. He wants us to know Him, to trust Him, to love Him.

But we must seek him wholeheartedly as He said in Jeremiah. If we hold on to our old ways, He is not pleased. Further on in chapter five, He chastises the Israelites for their phony attempts to serve him while they remain in their sin. In verse 21 He tells them, “I absolutely despise your festivals! I get no pleasure from your religious assemblies!” And dropping down to verse 27 He says, “…I will drive you into exile beyond Damascus.”

Church attendance doesn’t fool God. We can fool those around us. We might even fool ourselves. But if we try to hold on to anything that is not pleasing to Him, He sees through the charade. We should continually take a spiritual inventory. We should ask Him to show us if there is anything in our life that is more important to us than He is, and help us to eliminate whatever it is. He wants to shower blessings on us, but we must be willing to have Him be on the throne in our lives. Him and only Him. 

Thoughts on Amos 9

7“Are you not as the sons of Ethiopia to Me,

O sons of Israel?” declares the Lord.

“Have I not brought up Israel from the land of Egypt,

And the Philistines from Caphtor and the Arameans from Kir?

Amos 9:7 NASB

People of Ethiopia were thought by Israel to be distant and unimportant. In verse 7 God is saying, "Yes, I brought you out of Egypt, but I also brought he Philistines from Caphtor and the Arameans from Kir. Don't be proud just because you are Jews."

In verse 9, a shift begins to take place in the narrative:

9“For behold, I am commanding,

And I will shake the house of Israel among all nations

As grain is shaken in a sieve,

But not a kernel will fall to the ground.

Amos 9:9 NASB

Listen to Charles Spurgeon: “I think I see you, poor believer, tossed about like that wheat, up and down, right and left, in the sieve, and in the air, never resting. Perhaps it is suggested to you, ‘God is very angry with me.’ No, the farmer is not angry with his wheat when he casts it up and down in the sieve, and neither is God angry with you; this you shall see one day when the light shall show that love ruled in all your griefs.” 

This shaking in a sieve is a purification process. God is separating the wheat from the chaff. He is purifying His people.

11“In that day I will raise up the fallen booth of David,

And wall up its breaches;

I will also raise up its ruins

And rebuild it as in the days of old;

12That they may possess the remnant of Edom

And all the nations who are called by My name,”

Declares the Lord who does this.

Amos 9:11-12

Beginning in verse 11, the message is that God will restore the royal line of David. G. Campbell Morgan wrote: “It is now declared that the reason of the divine judgment is not revenge, but the only way in which it is possible to usher in the restored order on which the heart of God is set.”

Has the royal line of David been restored? Yes! Jesus the Messiah is from that line, and He will forever be on the throne!

The gist of these two verses is that God will restore David's line (which He did in Jesus),