Author Archives: Randy Buchman

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About Randy Buchman

I live in Western Maryland, and among my too many pursuits and hobbies, I regularly feed multiple hungry blogs. I played college baseball, coached championship cross country teams at Williamsport (MD) High School, and have been a sportswriter for various publications and online venues. My main profession was as the lead pastor of a church in Hagerstown called Tri-State Fellowship for 28 years before retiring in 2022. I'm also active in Civil War history and work/serve at Antietam National Battlefield with the Antietam Battlefield Guides organization. Occasionally I sleep.

Richard Sherman Nahum (Nahum chapters 2+3)

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Perhaps there are a few of you today who are so tuned out to football that you don’t quite “get” the title today – “Richard Sherman Nahum.” What I am referencing is that the prophet Nahum has a communication style about like that of Seattle Seahawks cornerback Richard Sherman, who made the critical play in the recent NFC Championship game that sent his team to the Super Bowl. In an interview with Erin Andrews after the game, he had an outburst of loud trash talking that will be remembered for decades in the NFL. And like him, the prophet Nahum lays down some serious verbal smack about the coming fate of the Assyrian Empire.

Here a couple of examples: “I will pelt you with filth, I will treat you with contempt and make you a spectacle … Look at your troops—they are all weaklings.”  Nahum would get a 15-yard personal foul penalty in the NFL for taunting with words like that.

But he was speaking to a people with a serious pride problem. Never before had a nation or empire expressed an attitude quite so bombastic as had the Assyrians. One of their kings wrote of himself, “I am Ashurbanipal, the great king, the mighty king, king of the universe, king of Assyria. The great gods magnified my name; they made my rule powerful.” Another named Esarhaddon said, “I am powerful, I am all powerful, I am a hero, I am gigantic, I am colossal, I am honored, I am magnified, I am without equal among all kings, the chosen one of Asshur, Nabu, and Marduk.” (Those final proper nouns were the names of Assyrian Gods.)Nineveh1

So, to get his message of the reality of the Assyrians’ certain coming destruction, Nahum resorts to Richard Sherman-style lingo. He even prophesies of the nature of their destruction – which would come by the rivers flooding and undercutting the city walls to allow access by the Medes and Babylonians. Nineveh was a sort of Fort Knox in terms of the stashes of silver and gold from all the conquered nations like Israel and Egypt. Nahum depicts the nasty battle and destruction, along with the wealth all being carried away. At the end of chapter three, he concludes with the statement that everyone everywhere would clap with pleasure at Assyria’s destruction, in that all people had felt the pain of their cruelty (like beheading masses of conquered people and stacking their heads in artistic pyramids – stuff like that!).

The Old Testament prophets contain repeated themes such as are seen in Nahum’s writing: that God and justice prevail in the end, that current riches and power are not necessarily the blessing of God, and that God would be faithful to his covenant promises to his own people and restore them. And in these themes are timeless truths for us as we live, almost as if in exile in uncharted territory, as strangers in a fallen world where injustice and evil often seem to prosper. Righteousness and truth prevail in the end, and we may have a part in that ultimate success through relationship with God through Jesus Christ.

Nahum Chapter 2

2:1 An attacker advances against you, Nineveh. Guard the fortress, watch the road, brace yourselves, marshal all your strength!

2 The Lord will restore the splendor of Jacob like the splendor of Israel, though destroyers have laid them waste and have ruined their vines.

3 The shields of the soldiers are red; the warriors are clad in scarlet. The metal on the chariots flashes on the day they are made ready; the spears of juniper are brandished.

4 The chariots storm through the streets, rushing back and forth through the squares. They look like flaming torches; they dart about like lightning.

5 Nineveh summons her picked troops, yet they stumble on their way. They dash to the city wall; the protective shield is put in place.

6 The river gates are thrown open and the palace collapses.

7 It is decreed that Nineveh be exiled and carried away. Her female slaves moan like doves     and beat on their breasts.

8 Nineveh is like a pool whose water is draining away. “Stop! Stop!” they cry, but no one turns back.

9 Plunder the silver! Plunder the gold! The supply is endless, the wealth from all its treasures!

10 She is pillaged, plundered, stripped! Hearts melt, knees give way, bodies tremble, every face grows pale.

11 Where now is the lions’ den, the place where they fed their young, where the lion and lioness went, and the cubs, with nothing to fear?

12 The lion killed enough for his cubs and strangled the prey for his mate, filling his lairs with the kill and his dens with the prey.

13 “I am against you,” declares the Lord Almighty. “I will burn up your chariots in smoke, and the sword will devour your young lions. I will leave you no prey on the earth. The voices of your messengers will no longer be heard.”

Nahum 3

3:1 Woe to the city of blood, full of lies, full of plunder, never without victims!

2 The crack of whips, the clatter of wheels, galloping horses and jolting chariots!

3 Charging cavalry, flashing swords and glittering spears! Many casualties, piles of dead, bodies without number, people stumbling over the corpses—4 all because of the wanton lust of a prostitute, alluring, the mistress of sorceries, who enslaved nations by her prostitution and peoples by her witchcraft.

5 “I am against you,” declares the Lord Almighty. “I will lift your skirts over your face. I will show the nations your nakedness and the kingdoms your shame.

6 I will pelt you with filth, I will treat you with contempt and make you a spectacle.

7 All who see you will flee from you and say, ‘Nineveh is in ruins—who will mourn for her?’  Where can I find anyone to comfort you?”

8 Are you better than Thebes, situated on the Nile, with water around her? The river was her defense, the waters her wall.

9 Cush and Egypt were her boundless strength; Put and Libya were among her allies.

10 Yet she was taken captive and went into exile. Her infants were dashed to pieces at every street corner. Lots were cast for her nobles, and all her great men were put in chains.

11 You too will become drunk; you will go into hiding and seek refuge from the enemy.

12 All your fortresses are like fig trees with their first ripe fruit; when they are shaken, the figs fall into the mouth of the eater.

13 Look at your troops—they are all weaklings. The gates of your land are wide open to your enemies; fire has consumed the bars of your gates.

14 Draw water for the siege, strengthen your defenses! Work the clay, tread the mortar, repair the brickwork!

15 There the fire will consume you; the sword will cut you down—they will devour you like a swarm of locusts. Multiply like grasshoppers, multiply like locusts!

16 You have increased the number of your merchants till they are more numerous than the stars in the sky, but like locusts they strip the land and then fly away.

17 Your guards are like locusts, your officials like swarms of locusts that settle in the walls on a cold day—but when the sun appears they fly away, and no one knows where.

18 King of Assyria, your shepherds slumber; your nobles lie down to rest. Your people are scattered on the mountains with no one to gather them.

19 Nothing can heal you; your wound is fatal. All who hear the news about you clap their hands at your fall, for who has not felt your endless cruelty?

The Two Sides of God (Nahum 1)

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We have all known people over the years who are a mixed bag of extremes – kind and loving one moment, yet in a short time triggered by some event into a violent rage. What makes such people difficult to deal with is the unpredictable nature of their personalities and expressions.

God’s character is expressed in two vastly different ways. Some people wrongly see God as merely a Father of love, love, love … who just loves everyone so much no matter what they do or values system they adopt – he just can’t help himself. Yet others see God as a nasty and vindictive despot who is always just waiting to zap the next person who steps off the straight and narrow. Both views are wrong … wrongly understanding love and wrath, or how God’s grace and justice work as two sides of the same coin.

Today and tomorrow we turn to the obscure little book of Nahum, and we have scheduled it for this week of study along with Jonah – the two books belonging together in their prophesies regarding the Assyrian Empire.

However, these prophets were not contemporaries and wrote about a century or more apart from each other. Jonah wrote in the mid 700s B.C. The fruit of his ministry was a short-term revival, but about 40 years late, Assyria conquered the northern 10-tribe kingdom of Israel. Another 20 years later in an attack upon the southern kingdom of Judah, God miraculously saved the nation by the deaths of 185,000 in the camps of the Assyrians. By the time of Nahum’s writing in the mid 600s B.C., Assyria was at its peak of power – having defeated the Egyptians, while also receiving tribute from Judah. Nahum predicted the demise of the proud Assyrians, which would happen at the hands of the Medes and Persians in 612 B.C. – with Jerusalem being taken by the same about seven years later, beginning the Babylonian Captivity of Judah.

1:1 A prophecy concerning Nineveh. The book of the vision of Nahum the Elkoshite.

2 The Lord is a jealous and avenging God; the Lord takes vengeance and is filled with wrath. The Lord takes vengeance on his foes and vents his wrath against his enemies.

3 The Lord is slow to anger but great in power; the Lord will not leave the guilty unpunished. His way is in the whirlwind and the storm, and clouds are the dust of his feet.

4 He rebukes the sea and dries it up; he makes all the rivers run dry. Bashan and Carmel wither     and the blossoms of Lebanon fade. 5 The mountains quake before him and the hills melt away. The earth trembles at his presence, the world and all who live in it.

6 Who can withstand his indignation? Who can endure his fierce anger? His wrath is poured out like fire; the rocks are shattered before him.

So these opening verses display God’s anger, wrath, and great power to judge. God will judge his enemies and those who stand up against him through evil lives. His anger is slow – to allow repentance; but his power is beyond the most powerful displays of nature … like tornados, droughts that wither the most fertile areas of the Near East, and volcanoes, earthquakes and other natural disasters. But here is the flipside …

7 The Lord is good, a refuge in times of trouble. He cares for those who trust in him,

But then again, the prophet returns to the first theme, identifying exactly whom God is particularly angry with – and it’s Nineveh …

8 but with an overwhelming flood he will make an end of Nineveh; he will pursue his foes into the realm of darkness. 9 Whatever they plot against the Lord he will bring to an end; trouble will not come a second time. 10 They will be entangled among thorns and drunk from their wine; they will be consumed like dry stubble. 11 From you, Nineveh, has one come forth who plots evil against the Lord and devises wicked plans.

The varied and powerful kings of Nineveh all had designs upon totally conquering Judah. There was the one particular incident of the 185,000 killed by God in one evening – sending Sennacherib back home. But they continued to threaten – and even held Judah’s King Manasseh in chains for a time. But the Assyrians were not to be the people to conquer Judah.

Here the Lord speaks through his prophet to the nation of Judah …

12 This is what the Lord says: “Although they have allies and are numerous, they will be destroyed and pass away. Although I have afflicted you, Judah, I will afflict you no more. 13 Now I will break their yoke from your neck and tear your shackles away.”

And now the word is directed toward the Assyrians …

14 The Lord has given a command concerning you, Nineveh: “You will have no descendants to bear your name. I will destroy the images and idols that are in the temple of your gods. I will prepare your grave, for you are vile.”

It is not a good thing to have God say that he is going to prepare your grave!  Nineveh was so completely destroyed and buried, that when Alexander the Great fought a battle near there a few hundred years later, he did not realize he was at that site.

15 Look, there on the mountains, the feet of one who brings good news, who proclaims peace! Celebrate your festivals, Judah, and fulfill your vows. No more will the wicked invade you;     they will be completely destroyed.

So there is judgment against Assyria – demonstrating God’s wrath, and grace toward Judah – demonstrating God’s mercy. Those are the two sides of God.

It is a terrible thing to be on the wrong side of God, and that is where we are in our natural condition under the curse of sin. But God’s grace, and Christ’s provision as the substitutionary object of God’s judgment, makes it possible for our adoption as his own people on the good side of God’s mercy.

Would you want a God who ignored sin and injustice and was simply love, love, love? No! And would you want a God who was angry and vindictive? Of course not. The difference between God’s two sides and the multiple personalities we know to mark the behavior of certain damaged people is that God’s two sides are predictable and work in perfect harmony. He is angry and will judge sin, but he is gracious toward those who repent and trust in the provision for sin that he has provided.

Less Like Jonah, More Like Jesus (Jonah 4)

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Though our published schedule calls for us to turn today to the book of Nahum, let’s cover that the next two days, while we add an additional thought on Jonah today.

God gets a bad rap sometimes from Bible readers – particularly about the Old Testament. There is just so much judgment and wrath against people groups and nations. And it is certainly not as if his own chosen people get off the hook. To the simple mind, God seems so angry and vindictive – nothing like this God of love that Christians talk about. And so, even scholars will sometimes talk about the God of the Old Testament and the God of the New Testament, as if they are two people.

God cares about lost people.  And that is not just something God stumbled upon in the New Testament.  He has always cared about lost people… way more than His own redeemed people (in any era) have ever cared about the unreached.  Telling Jonah to go to Nineveh was a tough assignment.  Nineveh was the capital city of the Assyrian Empire – the big bad boys on the block, and the enemies of Israel.  The Assyrians were bad people.  They were famous for doing things like impaling their enemies on a giant stick and making human popsicles out of them.  Going to Nineveh would be like being sent to Tokyo in 1943!  Or maybe like being told to have an evangelistic rally in Tehran or Baghdad today (or Mosul – the modern name for Nineveh!).  Or possibly, it might be more like the difficulty of taking the Gospel to that ungodly foreman at work who does not deserve God’s grace!

The fact of the matter for Jonah was that he did not really desire the repentance of the Ninevites.  Their destruction was cool with him… let ‘em toast!  When he saw that God had relented upon His plan to destroy them, Jonah was angry and basically said, “See, didn’t I tell you that this is exactly what would happen?”

So Jonah sat down to watch what would happen to the city.  It was blistering hot!  And God provided a fast growing plant with large leaves to provide shade for Jonah, which pleased him immensely.  But when a worm ate the plant and a sirocco (the actual word) came along and caused the plant and Jonah to dry up, he was immensely displeased.  God rightly pointed out to Jonah that he cared more about the plant (his creature comfort) than he did about the grace of God displayed to 120,000 people!

Is it possible for creature comforts to limit the zeal for outreach in our generation?  I think so.  We fear the repercussions of what people will think of us if we seek to speak intimately with them about their faith.  We may worry how it will impact our job relationship, or our standing in the community.  Who wants to be seen as a fanatic, or to be viewed as making judgments upon others’ beliefs?  Fear of not having enough material resources for our pleasures may prevent us from generous and greater involvement in the worldwide cause of Christ.

Maybe for you it is like what a famous person in Texas told me about pastors.  He said “Preachers are good, and I love them; but I love them in someone else’s family.”  I’m afraid a lot of Christians think, “Evangelism is good, and I’m glad it happens; but I’m happier if someone else does it.”  However, we all have a command to do it!  Let’s not be Jonahs who run in the opposite direction!

Contrast Jonah with Jesus, and not just the statement that Jesus made in Matthew 12 …

“A wicked and adulterous generation asks for a sign! But none will be given it except the sign of the prophet Jonah. For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of a huge fish, so the Son of Man will be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. The men of Nineveh will stand up at the judgment with this generation and condemn it; for they repented at the preaching of Jonah, and now something greater than Jonah is here.”

Beyond Jesus referencing the story of Jonah, consider the contrast of the characters themselves. Jonah set up shop outside the city of Nineveh to see it destroyed, whereas Jesus went outside the city of Jerusalem to give his life that others may live. And the heart of Christ is seen when he says of his city, “Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you were not willing.”

As in all things, it is our goal to become more like Christ. Yet on the matter of outreach, it is so much easier to be more like Jonah – only doing it if you simply have to, and not possessing any compassion for people who are, in a word, lost.

This Thing Called Repentance – Part 2 – (Jonah Chapters 3 and 4)

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Yesterday we read and talked about the first two chapters of Jonah, so we will finish this short four-chapter book today.

Again, here are four chapter headings to help you remember the story:

Chapter 1 – Jonah makes the sea sick.

Chapter 2 – Jonah makes the whale sick.

Chapter 3 – Jonah makes the Ninevites sick.

Chapter 4 – Jonah makes God sick!

The theme of our series through Jonah has been to talk about repentance. The prophet repented of his disobedience in running from God, and in chapter three we encounter the surprising result of the repentance of the heathen city of Nineveh.

Jonah Goes to Ninevehnineveh 1

3:1 Then the word of the Lord came to Jonah a second time: 2 “Go to the great city of Nineveh and proclaim to it the message I give you.”  3 Jonah obeyed the word of the Lord and went to Nineveh. Now Nineveh was a very large city; it took three days to go through it.

Indeed, by ancient standards Nineveh was a huge city. The walls were 50 feet thick and 100 feet high. The diameter of the main city was two miles with a circumference of eight miles. A lower wall was extended out farther from the city, so the metropolitan area was quite sizeable with a six-digit population. To cover the city with his preaching took Jonah three days, saying …

4 Jonah began by going a day’s journey into the city, proclaiming, “Forty more days and Nineveh will be overthrown.” 5 The Ninevites believed God. A fast was proclaimed, and all of them, from the greatest to the least, put on sackcloth.

So why would the Ninevites believe and repent? Well, there is the work of God involved in this, of course. Beyond that, we know from history that there were two large earthquakes in years just before Jonah’s arrival; and we know from science that there was a solar eclipse on a specific date at this same general time. Ancient people saw such events as divine omens.

6 When Jonah’s warning reached the king of Nineveh, he rose from his throne, took off his royal robes, covered himself with sackcloth and sat down in the dust. 7 This is the proclamation he issued in Nineveh:

“By the decree of the king and his nobles: Do not let people or animals, herds or flocks, taste anything; do not let them eat or drink. 8 But let people and animals be covered with sackcloth. Let everyone call urgently on God. Let them give up their evil ways and their violence. 9 Who knows? God may yet relent and with compassion turn from his fierce anger so that we will not perish.”

10 When God saw what they did and how they turned from their evil ways, he relented and did not bring on them the destruction he had threatened.

So, in a different sense, God repented – changed from one disposition to another. We know from history that this revival must not have had lasting effect for successive generations. It would only be about 37 years later that the Assyrians would indeed conquer the Northern Kingdom. Their attempt to capture the Southern Kingdom of Judah was unsuccessful due to the intervention of God destroying 185,000 of the Assyrian army. The prophet Nahum – our readings for Thursday and Friday of this week – spoke a prediction of judgment against them because of their wickedness.

So the message Jonah shared made the Ninevites sick, but finally, Jonah’s reaction to this entire story makes God sick …nineveh_city_walls

Jonah’s Anger at the Lord’s Compassion

4:1  But to Jonah this seemed very wrong, and he became angry. 2 He prayed to the Lord, “Isn’t this what I said, Lord, when I was still at home? That is what I tried to forestall by fleeing to Tarshish. I knew that you are a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger and abounding in love, a God who relents from sending calamity.

Have you ever prayed to God like Jonah did here?  I have – as I’ve several times shared with you the story of my anger at God earlier in my life, when, living in Texas and training for ministry, I did not receive a ministry position in a church that sure looked like a no-brainer at the time … and it still does. I should have gotten the position by all measurements … but God came along a few months later with a far better opportunity that has impacted my entire life since then.

Jonah is a guy you’d want on your Bible trivia team… he gets all the right answers. Verse 2 is a perfect definition of the revealed character of God. Jonah knows the truth, he just hated God’s application of it in the real world.

3 Now, Lord, take away my life, for it is better for me to die than to live.” 4 But the Lord replied, “Is it right for you to be angry?”

5 Jonah had gone out and sat down at a place east of the city. There he made himself a shelter, sat in its shade and waited to see what would happen to the city. 6 Then the Lord God provided a leafy plant and made it grow up over Jonah to give shade for his head to ease his discomfort, and Jonah was very happy about the plant. 7 But at dawn the next day God provided a worm, which chewed the plant so that it withered. 8 When the sun rose, God provided a scorching east wind, and the sun blazed on Jonah’s head so that he grew faint. He wanted to die, and said, “It would be better for me to die than to live.”

So Jonah finds a high spot that overlooks the city, and he there sets up shop to see what is going to happen – hopefully that God will destroy the place!

Along the way in this place of a dry dessert climate, God caused a large leafy plant to grow and provide shade, but also a worm to eat this overgrown vegetable. Jonah’s joy for his creature comfort far exceeded his joy for seeing people repent and turn from evil.

9 But God said to Jonah, “Is it right for you to be angry about the plant?”

“It is,” he said. “And I’m so angry I wish I were dead.”

10 But the Lord said, “You have been concerned about this plant, though you did not tend it or make it grow. It sprang up overnight and died overnight. 11 And should I not have concern for the great city of Nineveh, in which there are more than a hundred and twenty thousand people who cannot tell their right hand from their left—and also many animals?”

The juxtaposition of Jonah’s attitude about a silly plant with God’s perspective on many thousands of people stands as a stark contrast with its own lessons (that we’ll talk about tomorrow).

But today, what else may we continue to learn about repentance? Here are three more points to add to those shared yesterday …

5.  God often does things in his sovereign wisdom that we do not understand and that do not make sense to us, but his desire for repentance / blessing is greater than his desire to judge.

I cannot tell you why God does what He does, nor can I explain why He does not do others things a whole lot faster! But I can tell you that God is more interested in our obedience than our accomplishments. God allows things to happen to us, so that things will happen in us, that things may happen through us; and when you get that 3-point thing understood and accept it in faith – you’ve really accomplished something!

6.  Though repentance for salvation is a once and done thing, repentance in the life of discipleship needs regular vigilance.

We talk about repentance in the issue of our salvation, and that repentance and change is a once-and-for-all life-changing directional shift where we move from the Kingdom of Darkness to the Kingdom of Light. But in our present human condition on this side of Glory, we will have failings that require us to be vigilant about making matters right with God by turning from sin, and trusting in Him.

7.  Our constant need is a view of the sovereign work of God, that we may be blessed by being in alignment and agreement with it.

We constantly need to be looking to see what God is doing around us … in our homes and families, through our work, and together here through our church … that we may align with it. In the midst of routine faithfulness and service, we may not always see God’s plan – which may not at times look like much – but we persevere, and in the end are able to look back at His good work.

Summary – So what is repentance?  It is a change in us where we agree with God about sin (we call this confession) and then we turn from it in repentance and go in the other direction – not like Jonah away from God, but rather away from sin and toward truth.

This Thing Called Repentance – Part 1 – (Jonah Chapters 1 and 2)

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We are all generally familiar with the story of Jonah the Prophet, who was called of God to go to Nineveh and preach God’s truth there. Instead, he went in the opposite direction toward Tarshish (Spain) and ended up creating a bellyache for the whale. Eventually, he got to the correct destination and completed his assignment, though with more than a wee bit of a grudging attitude. 

The book of Jonah is filled with the concept of “repentance.” And we asked in the sermon yesterday, “What does it mean to repent?”  While certainly a biblical word, repentance often concurs up in our modern minds some wide-eyed, hair-disheveled, twang-tongued, sweating, Bible-pounding evangelist yelling “REPENT, or burn in hell!”  Is it about fear? Is it about emotion?

When disciplining children, we want to get them to a point where they turn away from whatever attitude of rebellion that led to an altercation needing correction; and we want to see them genuinely break and understand what they did wrong, and therefore desire to not do that deed again and now behave in a proper way. And that is essentially what it means to repent. More on that in a moment (actually tomorrow), but let’s go to the story of Jonah.

Jonah was one of the earlier prophets, being a contemporary of Amos and Hosea – whom we have recently studied. Though these two were prophetic voices to the nation of Israel, Jonah was called by God to speak to the big, bad boys on the block in the ancient world at that time – the Assyrians. These were bad, bad people. They were brutal to captured foes in particular – known to impale people on a pole – making a human popsicle of them. The Assyrians were the enemy of Israel, and though they would later be used by God to punish Israel, their power to do so had not yet reached sufficient strength.

It was not as if Israel had her own act together as a nation – recall the messages of Hosea and Amos. Though this was the peak of their territorial expansion and material success under the reign of Jereboam II, there was nothing that really set them much apart from the heathen nations around them in terms of the true worship of God rather than idols and materialism.

So for Jonah to be called of God to go preach to these people seemed extraordinarily odd to him. Who would want to go to the center of such a place and tell them they were in trouble with God? If they did not like the message, they could make a popsicle out of Jonah. And if they repented, that would not be good for Israel. To Jonah, the whole thing looked like a lose/lose.

Over the years, I’ve used this slick little outline of Jonah to help remember the big idea of each of the four chapters of this short little Old Testament book…

Chapter 1 – Jonah makes the sea sick.

Chapter 2 – Jonah makes the whale sick.

Chapter 3 – Jonah makes the Ninevites sick.

Chapter 4 – Jonah makes God sick!

Jonah Flees From the Lord

1:1 The word of the Lord came to Jonah son of Amittai: 2 “Go to the great city of Nineveh and preach against it, because its wickedness has come up before me.”

3 But Jonah ran away from the Lord and headed for Tarshish. He went down to Joppa, where he found a ship bound for that port. After paying the fare, he went aboard and sailed for Tarshish to flee from the Lord.

Nineveh was a huge city by ancient standards. It was seven times larger than the old city of Jerusalem for example. From Israel it was about 500 miles to the northeast – in modern Iraq near the border with Turkey … in fact, it is the modern city of Mosul, which we heard much about in the Iraq War.

Jonah essentially went in the opposite direction – catching presumably a Phoenician boat sailing to the coast of Spain to Tarshish – about 3,000 miles in the wrong direction!

4 Then the Lord sent a great wind on the sea, and such a violent storm arose that the ship threatened to break up. 5 All the sailors were afraid and each cried out to his own god. And they threw the cargo into the sea to lighten the ship. But Jonah had gone below deck, where he lay down and fell into a deep sleep. 6 The captain went to him and said, “How can you sleep? Get up and call on your god! Maybe he will take notice of us so that we will not perish.”

7 Then the sailors said to each other, “Come, let us cast lots to find out who is responsible for this calamity.” They cast lots and the lot fell on Jonah. 8 So they asked him, “Tell us, who is responsible for making all this trouble for us? What kind of work do you do? Where do you come from? What is your country? From what people are you?”

9 He answered, “I am a Hebrew and I worship the Lord, the God of heaven, who made the sea and the dry land.”

10 This terrified them and they asked, “What have you done?” (They knew he was running away from the Lord, because he had already told them so.)

11 The sea was getting rougher and rougher. So they asked him, “What should we do to you to make the sea calm down for us?”

12 “Pick me up and throw me into the sea,” he replied, “and it will become calm. I know that it is my fault that this great storm has come upon you.”

13 Instead, the men did their best to row back to land. But they could not, for the sea grew even wilder than before. 14 Then they cried out to the Lord, “Please, Lord, do not let us die for taking this man’s life. Do not hold us accountable for killing an innocent man, for you, Lord, have done as you pleased.” 15 Then they took Jonah and threw him overboard, and the raging sea grew calm. 16 At this the men greatly feared the Lord, and they offered a sacrifice to the Lord and made vows to him.

It is interesting to see that these pagan, idolatrous men had more compassion for Jonah than God’s prophet had for them or the Ninevites. This whole story is filled with counter-intuitive elements. But Jonah’s sin had caused the sea to get sick, so reluctantly they tossed him overboard.

Jonah’s Prayer

1:17 Now the Lord provided a huge fish to swallow Jonah, and Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights.

2:1  From inside the fish Jonah prayed to the Lord his God. 2 He said: “In my distress I called to the Lord, and he answered me. From deep in the realm of the dead I called for help, and you listened to my cry.

So Jonah has a personal revival in the belly of the whale (or whatever large fish it was). There have been accounts of whalers who have been swallowed by whales and survived the ordeal, but without doubt, this was a God-ordained intervention, as are many other elements of the story. We don’t need to have natural explanations.

Jonah continues with his prayer of repentance …

3 You hurled me into the depths, into the very heart of the seas, and the currents swirled about me; all your waves and breakers swept over me.

4 I said, ‘I have been banished from your sight; yet I will look again toward your holy temple.’

5 The engulfing waters threatened me, the deep surrounded me; seaweed was wrapped around my head.

6 To the roots of the mountains I sank down; the earth beneath barred me in forever. But you, Lord my God, brought my life up from the pit.

7 “When my life was ebbing away, I remembered you, Lord, and my prayer rose to you, to your holy temple.

8 “Those who cling to worthless idols turn away from God’s love for them.

9 But I, with shouts of grateful praise, will sacrifice to you. What I have vowed I will make good. I will say, ‘Salvation comes from the Lord.’”

10 And the Lord commanded the fish, and it vomited Jonah onto dry land.

So, chapter 2, Jonah made the whale sick, but the fish did his job, presumably depositing Jonah again on the eastern Mediterranean coast where he could resume his trip to Nineveh, now in obedience to God, even if grudgingly done.

Let me share some application thoughts from these first two chapters …

1.  Obeying and serving God may often go against our natural sensibilities and desires… and we may foolishly just go the other way.

We may not personally like the paths that God chooses for us. We may resent his calling and want to do what we would rather do. There is no shortage of people who can testify from their lives how for so long they resisted what God wanted them to do, until finally finding peace and satisfaction by doing what he directed and desired.

2.  We may often find ourselves in denial or justification of our desires over obeying God’s call… and just sleep through reality.

Again, there is no shortage of stories of people who knew God wanted them to do something, but they fought it and denied it and went their own way. Is there something – large or small – that you know God has put in your heart to do … but you are fighting this thought / idea / feeling / open door out of fear or resistance?

3.  You can know all the right answers, but still not be in obedience to God.

This is a real warning for those of us who like the academic side of things … believing that all is right because we are thinking the correct things theologically… Jonah knew all the right answers for the seaman who questioned him.

4.  God may chose to bring an unpleasant experience into our lives to get us back on track with following him.

Unpleasant experiences are not always God getting our attention. Bad things happen because we simply live in an imperfect world. But there are times when in light of God’s work in your life and what the Spirit is telling you through the Word, that God intervenes to get you turned to a new and proper direction.

Check back tomorrow to finish Jonah and to gain some final, additional thoughts on repentance.

Extreme Judgment, Yet Extreme Grace – Amos 9

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(Sorry that this posted a day early for many of you … these are written in advance and I scheduled the wrong date)

The Bible certainly contains a message with the extremes of both judgment and grace. When God judges, it is full and final – the ultimate. And when God saves, it is only done because of his great grace. Unlike the natural mind of the world who asks the presumably intelligent question, “How can a God of love be a God of judgment and execution?” … when the appropriate question is rather, “How can a perfect and righteous God justly extend grace to evil sinners?”  The answer to the latter is that he is able to justly do so because of the substitute of the holy for the unholy, the payment made by the perfect Lamb, and the extension of righteousness offered to those who will receive it.

So we see in the Scriptures the lowest of lows, and the highest of highs. And in today’s chapter, we see these disparate ideas – of the complete judgment of Israel, yet the promise of a glorious future for a remnant to return.

This last chapter of Amos gives a statement of the destruction of the nation …

Israel’s Judgment

9:1 – I saw the Lord standing by the altar, and he said: “Strike the tops of the pillars so that the thresholds shake. Bring them down on the heads of all the people; those who are left I will kill with the sword. Not one will get away, none will escape.

2 Though they dig down to the depths below, from there my hand will take them. Though they climb up to the heavens above, from there I will bring them down.

3 Though they hide themselves on the top of Carmel, there I will hunt them down and seize them. Though they hide from my eyes at the bottom of the sea, there I will command the serpent to bite them.

4 Though they are driven into exile by their enemies, there I will command the sword to slay them. “I will keep my eye on them for harm and not for good.”

5 The Lord, the Lord Almighty—he touches the earth and it melts, and all who live in it mourn; the whole land rises like the Nile, then sinks like the river of Egypt; 6 he builds his lofty palace[a] in the heavens and sets its foundation[b] on the earth; he calls for the waters of the sea and pours them out over the face of the land—the Lord is his name.

7 “Are not you Israelites the same to me as the Cushites[c]?” declares the Lord. “Did I not bring Israel up from Egypt, the Philistines from Caphtor[d] and the Arameans from Kir?

8 “Surely the eyes of the Sovereign Lord are on the sinful kingdom. I will destroy it from the face of the earth. Yet I will not totally destroy the descendants of Jacob,” declares the Lord.

9 “For I will give the command, and I will shake the people of Israel among all the nations as grain is shaken in a sieve, and not a pebble will reach the ground.

10 All the sinners among my people will die by the sword, all those who say, ‘Disaster will not overtake or meet us.’

The picture of the temple falling upon the heads of the worshippers is a symbolic one of the extent of judgment to drop upon the nation. There is no place to hide, high or low – God will send a slaying judgment in one form or another. As well, God is sovereign as well over the natural forces of the world, and he may use these at his desire to accomplish his ends.

With Israel’s history of incredible deliverance from Egypt, there was a sense that a God who went to this extreme out of his love for them would never be a God who would allow calamity and annihilation to befall them. So Amos writes to say that they are no more special at this point than Cush – an area of Africa of relative insignificance, essentially at the end of the known world. God had allowed other nations to experience a successful sort of exodus – the Philistines and Arameans – but certainly they were not chosen especially by God. Israel should not feel a unique shelter from severe judgment.

Amos has been a pretty negative book … filled with thundering words of judgment and destruction. But the final verses will take a totally different turn and possess an entirely different flavor …

Israel’s Restoration

11 “In that day I will restore David’s fallen shelter—I will repair its broken walls and restore its ruins—and will rebuild it as it used to be, 12 so that they may possess the remnant of Edom and all the nations that bear my name,” declares the Lord, who will do these things.

13 “The days are coming,” declares the Lord, “when the reaper will be overtaken by the plowman and the planter by the one treading grapes. New wine will drip from the mountains     and flow from all the hills, 14 and I will bring my people Israel back from exile.

“They will rebuild the ruined cities and live in them. They will plant vineyards and drink their wine; they will make gardens and eat their fruit.

15 I will plant Israel in their own land, never again to be uprooted from the land I have given them,” says the Lord your God.

Amos says that a further day would come of restoration for a remnant of the people of Jacob. Though as a nation they were destroyed, a remnant would someday return to the land of promise. This happened in the nearer term under Ezra and Nehemiah, and in reference to a millennial age yet future, it shall happen again – forever, never to be removed.

The passage brings into it the concept as well of the Nations – of Gentiles to have hope in God’s grace and restoration. That is incredible!

Folks … If you have any remnant in you of some amount of personal merit for the goodness of God that you have received … any portion of your salvation or hope that is based in something you see good about yourself … get rid of it! Even the ability to see and understand the gospel, and to respond to it in submission, comes as a gift of God’s grace – which is by definition his merit extended, where wrath is deserved.

God had no obligation to ever extend grace … not to Adam and Eve, not to Noah, not to Abraham, not to Israel, not to David, not to Paul or Peter or any of the church founders, and not to you or me. But he does. Boast in him … in his grace alone.

The Day of the Big Re-Set – Amos 8

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Every so often in the history of a people, there is an event that is a giant “re-set.”  It becomes THE event of a generation, or a century. Clearly, after that moment, everything is going to be different.

My parents’ generation had that experience in 1929 with the great depression. Others recall Pearl Harbor Day as having this life-altering reality. For many of us, we recall 9/11 in some measure in this way. I know I did – being up in Pennsylvania when it happened, listening to the events on the radio while driving home, I knew that this was a watershed moment in my life and generation.

The ultimate “re-set” for a nation is of course when they are essentially wiped out as an independent entity. And that is the nature of the prophecy of Amos to the people of Israel just a few decades before the Assyrians (and later the Babylonians) would pillage God’s disobedient children. Their sin had made them ripe for judgment …

8:1 – This is what the Sovereign Lord showed me: a basket of ripe fruit. 2 “What do you see, Amos?” he asked.

“A basket of ripe fruit,” I answered.

Then the Lord said to me, “The time is ripe for my people Israel; I will spare them no longer.

3 “In that day,” declares the Sovereign Lord, “the songs in the temple will turn to wailing. Many, many bodies—flung everywhere! Silence!”

The reading of these verses about a basket of ripe fruit is more dramatic in the original Hebrew, because the words translating “fruit” and “time is ripe” sound very, very similar. It would be like saying, “The dog snarled at the boy like he wanted to take a bit of a bite out of him.”  Yes, the time was ripe for ripping Israel from their false security, and their pleasant songs of (hypocritical) worship would be replaced with wailing. The devastation would call for … SILENCE!

The reasons God would do this to his chosen people are rehearsed yet again …

4 Hear this, you who trample the needy and do away with the poor of the land, 5 saying, “When will the New Moon be over that we may sell grain, and the Sabbath be ended that we may market wheat?”—skimping on the measure, boosting the price and cheating with dishonest scales, 6 buying the poor with silver and the needy for a pair of sandals, selling even the sweepings with the wheat.

7 The Lord has sworn by himself, the Pride of Jacob: “I will never forget anything they have done.

Amos repeats a theme from chapter 5 – the issue of their material exploitation and injustice. The picture is of merchants who tolerated holy days – Sabbaths and festivals – yet were impatient to see them end so that they could get back to selling and cheating people in varied ways.

8 “Will not the land tremble for this, and all who live in it mourn? The whole land will rise like the Nile; it will be stirred up and then sink like the river of Egypt.

Here is another picture of the “re-set” that Amos said was coming. The Nile River in Egypt was known throughout the ancient world for its annual flooding. This would bring on the one hand a good deposit of rich silt for agriculture, but on the other hand, if the flood was too high, towns would be wiped out. The Aswan Dam of 1970 has brought order to this cycle in modern times. But the picture is that Israel would experience a “judgment flood” and would find everything “re-set” on the other side – if they survived.

The scope of the re-set is seen in the following verses …

9 “In that day,” declares the Sovereign Lord, “I will make the sun go down at noon and darken the earth in broad daylight.

10 I will turn your religious festivals into mourning and all your singing into weeping. I will make all of you wear sackcloth and shave your heads. I will make that time like mourning for an only son and the end of it like a bitter day.

11 “The days are coming,” declares the Sovereign Lord, “when I will send a famine through the land—not a famine of food or a thirst for water, but a famine of hearing the words of the Lord.

12 People will stagger from sea to sea and wander from north to east, searching for the word of the Lord, but they will not find it.

13 “In that day the lovely young women and strong young men will faint because of thirst.

14 Those who swear by the sin of Samaria—who say, ‘As surely as your god lives, Dan,’ or, ‘As surely as the god of Beersheba lives’—they will fall, never to rise again.”

This final verse is a bit odd, but, it references those who had confidence in Samaria = Israel = Northern Kingdom. Whether their faith was placed in the god over Dan or Beersheba, the land was getting wiped out. Dan was the northernmost area, whereas Beersheba was the southernmost. It would be like us saying, “from Caribou, Maine to Key West, Florida.”

Be sure to note this major idea from these final verses: the greatest loss was not of food or water or anything of the material world. The most-felt loss was of the Word of the Lord. God would be silent; he would not be found; he would not be speaking through prophets anymore. He.Was.Gone!

It is a hard sell that the greatest need any of us have is the live-giving Word of God. It is nice to have material and measurable success in your life or in the corporate life of the church family. But the greatest need is knowing God’s Word. It is nice when everything about life and church is going well and booming and progressing. But, the greatest need is knowing God’s Word.

To you reading this … thank you for investing in knowing God’s Word. It is exceedingly difficult to get anything even close to a majority of people in a church like TSF to make such an investment. Why? Because, like Israel, too many do not actually believe their greatest need is the life-giving Word of God, or that their highest commitment needs to be growing in it and their knowledge of God.

A big life calamity that is a “re-set” might change that, but why wait for disaster?

Inside the Beltway Thinking – Amos 6

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There is a phrase that is used in our time within the realm of political discourse to speak of a certain mindset in Washington, D.C. as “inside the beltway thinking.”  This refers to politicians who go to Washington, who become a part of the scene and lifestyle there, who adopt the culture of self-serving and uncaring leadership, and who become therefore isolated from the real world outside of the Capital Beltway.

I had a friend who was elected to a high position in government at an unusually young age. As an older man, he reflected on that portion of his life – a time that he looked back upon decades later as filled with a lot of futility and false pride. He once told me, “When you walk down the marble halls of the state capital, the sound of your footsteps echo back to you and seem to say, ‘You’re really something now, you’re a pretty big deal!’”

It is to such a crowd of elite leaders in Israel that Amos speaks his fifth and final message (of those written in chapters 2 through 6). And in verse 1, even the leaders in the Southern Kingdom are included in the warning.

6:1  Woe to you who are complacent in Zion, and to you who feel secure on Mount Samaria, you notable men of the foremost nation, to whom the people of Israel come!

2 Go to Kalneh and look at it; go from there to great Hamath, and then go down to Gath in Philistia. Are they better off than your two kingdoms? Is their land larger than yours?

The cities and nationalities mentioned in verse 2 were of surrounding areas that had been conquered in recent decades by Assyrian kings and warfare. Was Israel larger or stronger than these fallen places?  The answer to that question was “no.”

3 You put off the day of disaster and bring near a reign of terror. 4 You lie on beds adorned with ivory and lounge on your couches. You dine on choice lambs and fattened calves.

5 You strum away on your harps like David and improvise on musical instruments.

6 You drink wine by the bowlful and use the finest lotions, but you do not grieve over the ruin of Joseph.

Again, as in earlier chapters, the indulgent lifestyles of the leading classes of people in Israel were excessive in the extreme and sustained through injustice. The Hebrew word for “lie on beds” is a colorful one picturing a person with arms and legs spread out in drunken fashion. Their drinking was excessive – by the bowlful! And they did not grieve over the ruin of Joseph –referencing the Northern Kingdom. Remember that there was no tribe of Joseph, but that he had a double portion through his two sons Ephraim and Manasseh. The tribe of Ephraim was especially large, and sometimes the Northern Kingdom was called “Epharim,” and in this case it is referenced as “Joseph.”

7 Therefore you will be among the first to go into exile; your feasting and lounging will end.

The Lord Abhors the Pride of Israel

8 The Sovereign LORD has sworn by himself—the LORD God Almighty declares: “I abhor the pride of Jacob and detest his fortresses; I will deliver up the city and everything in it.”

9 If ten people are left in one house, they too will die. 10 And if the relative who comes to carry the bodies out of the house to burn them asks anyone who might be hiding there, “Is anyone else with you?” and he says, “No,” then he will go on to say, “Hush! We must not mention the name of the LORD.”

11 For the LORD has given the command, and he will smash the great house into pieces and the small house into bits.

12 Do horses run on the rocky crags? Does one plow the sea with oxen? But you have turned justice into poison and the fruit of righteousness into bitterness—13 you who rejoice in the conquest of Lo Debar and say, “Did we not take Karnaim by our own strength?”

14 For the LORD God Almighty declares, “I will stir up a nation against you, Israel, that will oppress you all the way from Lebo Hamath to the valley of the Arabah.”

There are some interesting pictures in these verses:

–        The anger of the Lord was such that if ten people in a home were killed, and a relative came along to deal with the bodies, he would be afraid that anyone might still be left alive who escaped somehow, and his voice would bring God’s wrath back upon them.

–        Amos asks if horses run on rocky crags – well of course not. And do oxen plow the seas – that is ridiculous. And so it was just as unimaginable what these corrupt leaders had done with the system of justice. In the final couple of decades before the destruction of the nation, a series of six horrific kings fully defiled any system of justice or righteousness.

–        Israel was proud of a victory they had achieved on the east of the Jordan in recovering an area named Lo Debar … but Amos intentionally makes a play on words by referencing it as Lo Dabar, which means “nothing” in Hebrew. Their great, proud victory was nothing in God’s eyes.

Having fallen into sin, it is the nature of man to be self-indulgent and proud. This is especially true of so many who by whatever good fortune are able to find success in the measurements of this world … be it in government, business, education, entertainment, or whatever. It is easy to have your life’s footsteps seem to echo back to you that you are a pretty big deal, only to at the end of it all find at the top of the ladder of success that it was leaning against the wrong building and had taken you to Lo Dabar – nothing.

Fat Cow Women – Amos 4

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It is generally not a popular thing to call women “cows.”  But the prophet Amos was not in the business of being nice, but of rather calling in dramatic tones and pictures to a wayward people to attempt to awaken them to their spiritual plight.

Chapter 4 of Amos is the second of five messages that the prophet delivers to the nation of Israel. He speaks to them about their indulgence and injustice, their hypocritical worship, and the certainty of judgment due to their lack of repentance.

4:1 – Hear this word, you cows of Bashan on Mount Samaria, you women who oppress the poor and crush the needy and say to your husbands, “Bring us some drinks!”

2 The Sovereign Lord has sworn by his holiness: “The time will surely come when you will be taken away with hooks, the last of you with fishhooks. 3 You will each go straight out through breaches in the wall, and you will be cast out toward Harmon,” declares the Lord.

The land of Bashan is the area to the northeast of the Sea of Galilee and is in modern-day Syria, comprising also the Golan Heights. It is an area spoken of on multiple occasions in Scripture as a rich land for pasture and agriculture. And so, the prophet speaks of the bossy rich women of Israel as like the fat cows in the pastures of Bashan – feeding their many self-indulgent passions through the exploitation of the masses of poor and needy people.

Amos says to them that a time is coming when they will be strung together like a chain of fish and led away into captivity toward Harmon – on the road through Bashan toward Assyria.

We next see the prophet condemning their false pride in worship and religious observance…

4 “Go to Bethel and sin; go to Gilgal and sin yet more. Bring your sacrifices every morning, your tithes every three years.

5 Burn leavened bread as a thank offering and brag about your freewill offerings—boast about them, you Israelites, for this is what you love to do,” declares the Sovereign Lord.

Bethel was the center of worship in the north; Gilgal was the place where Israel first entered the Promised Land and was also a place of worship and sacrifice. But their worship was simply perfunctory – their animals and agricultural offerings even coming from wrongly-seized lands. All of it was a sacrilege to the Lord, who knew their hearts and lifestyles were far from righteous.

God gave them sufficient warnings …

6 “I gave you empty stomachs in every city and lack of bread in every town, yet you have not returned to me,” declares the Lord.

7 “I also withheld rain from you when the harvest was still three months away. I sent rain on one town, but withheld it from another. One field had rain; another had none and dried up.

8 People staggered from town to town for water but did not get enough to drink, yet you have not returned to me,” declares the Lord.

9 “Many times I struck your gardens and vineyards, destroying them with blight and mildew.

Locusts devoured your fig and olive trees, yet you have not returned to me,” declares the Lord.

10 “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.

11 “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.

Every one of these events in verses 6-11 – hunger, drought, famine, blight, diseases, locusts, plagues, death – were foretold in the covenant God made with Israel as the natural consequences that would follow their disobedience. A year ago we studied through Deuteronomy (see HERE) and wrote about this very list of consequences, and now we see them piling up on Israel, and STILL they would not turn back to God.

Therefore, they should prepare for judgment …

12 “Therefore this is what I will do to you, Israel, and because I will do this to you, Israel, prepare to meet your God.” 13 He who forms the mountains, who creates the wind, and who reveals his thoughts to mankind, who turns dawn to darkness, and treads on the heights of the earth—the Lord God Almighty is his name.

Summarizing the content of this prophecy of Amos, what might we take away as topically similar to our world today?  Amos essentially condemned materialism, exploitation, empty worship, and a denial of the natural consequences of disobeying God. Does that sound anything like America in 2014? The people to whom Amos spoke essentially had the worldview of “I want to live well and look good, while being also seen as spiritual and in the position of good standing with God because of my obvious blessings.”

Could there even be “trending” of Evangelical Christians toward such worldviews – conscious or not? Could a nice church person in 2014 conclude that their life blessings are the just rewards of God indicating they are in sufficiently good standing?  Could worshipping God just enough, when there is no other schedule priority, give a modern Christian a sense of security about their faith?

The Principle of Cause and Effect – Amos 3

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Today is the first of five readings/writings this week from selected portions of the prophecy of Amos.

If you read these devotionals this week, by Friday you will know the message of Amos and understand his timeless applications to modern life. If you choose to not participate, you will not know what the biblical prophet Amos had to say that is any different from Amos Diggory in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire.

What I did in that paragraph above is lay out for you a cause and effect, and that is what we will see in today’s reading.

Background of Amos – Be sure to check on the web page on the bar at the top entitled “The Prophets” to see where our fellow for this week fits into the scheme of the Old Testament Prophets. Amos was from the Southern Kingdom of Judah, and his prophecies were largely to the Northern Kingdom of Israel (though there are prophetic utterances for a variety of nations, and even for his own land of Judah). So we would date Amos at about 760 B.C., which would mean that his prophecies of destruction would be fulfilled in Israel less than 40 years later – as the Assyrians plundered the nation and took them into captivity.

The Character Amos – This prophet was not from the sort of background you would expect. He was not from nobility or education, but was rather a shepherd and agriculturalist. We might see him as a sort of good ole boy, Duck Dynasty family member being used by God to deliver a message from God. His prophecies and pictures are very earthy and from a sort of working-man’s hands-on perspective.

As we go to chapter 3 today, let me simply summarize for you that the first two chapters included pronouncements of judgment on six different surrounding nations and Judah, and finally most specifically to the northern 10 tribes known at this time as “Israel.”  Chapters 3 through 6 give five “messages” from Amos that detail God’s reasons for the pending judgment. Our reading today is the first of these messages …

1. Judgment is coming because of God’s special relationship with Israel (1-2)

3:1,2 – Hear this word, people of Israel, the word the Lord has spoken against you—against the whole family I brought up out of Egypt: “You only have I chosen of all the families of the earth; therefore I will punish you for all your sins.”

Numerous times in the Old Testament God points out to the nation of Israel that they were unique among the nations of the world – only they had been favored by God to be HIS people. One would expect that to produce a profound obedience arising from such a blessing … but such was not so. Even though God had done wondrous things – like delivering them from Egypt to a bountiful promised land – the people turned away from him into disobedience. In the same way that as parents we discipline our own children more than those of another family, so God had a right to discipline his own rebellious family.

2. Judgment was coming because of the law of cause and effect (3-8)

Here is a series of seven “if this, then that” statements …

3 Do two walk together unless they have agreed to do so?

4 Does a lion roar in the thicket when it has no prey? Does it growl in its den when it has caught nothing?

5 Does a bird swoop down to a trap on the ground when no bait is there? Does a trap spring up from the ground if it has not caught anything?

6 When a trumpet sounds in a city, do not the people tremble? When disaster comes to a city,     has not the Lord caused it?

7 Surely the Sovereign Lord does nothing without revealing his plan to his servants the prophets.

8 The lion has roared—who will not fear?  The Sovereign Lord has spoken—who can but prophesy?

None of these illustrations happen or eventuate without a cause. For example, the only reason a trap springs up from the ground is because something has triggered it to do so. It does not just do it on its own. And so, God’s judgment is certain to follow the disobedience of the people.

3. Judgment is coming because of unparalleled oppression and injustice (9-10)

9 Proclaim to the fortresses of Ashdod and to the fortresses of Egypt: “Assemble yourselves on the mountains of Samaria; see the great unrest within her and the oppression among her people.”

10 “They do not know how to do right,” declares the Lord, “who store up in their fortresses what they have plundered and looted.”

Ashdod would speak of the Philistines. So the text here is saying that if emissaries from Philistia and Egypt – places notoriously dreadful for sinful oppression and injustice – were to come to Samaria (Israel), they would be shocked at a level of corrupt behavior beyond anything even seen at home!

4. The certainty of total destruction (11-15)

11 Therefore this is what the Sovereign Lord says: “An enemy will overrun your land, pull down your strongholds and plunder your fortresses.”

12 This is what the Lord says: “As a shepherd rescues from the lion’s mouth only two leg bones or a piece of an ear, so will the Israelites living in Samaria be rescued, with only the head of a bed and a piece of fabric from a couch.”

13 “Hear this and testify against the descendants of Jacob,” declares the Lord, the Lord God Almighty.

14 “On the day I punish Israel for her sins, I will destroy the altars of Bethel; the horns of the altar will be cut off and fall to the ground.

15 I will tear down the winter house along with the summer house; the houses adorned with ivory will be destroyed and the mansions will be demolished,” declares the Lord.

A shepherd who arrives late upon the scene of a lion having captured and devoured a sheep from the flock may find only a few bones or a portion of an ear as visible proof of what happened. So completely and thoroughly would Israel be destroyed. The altars of Bethel refer to the location of a golden calf for worship erected by a king of an earlier era. These “wealthy” people who had accumulated their gain through evil practice would have both their winter and summer residences destroyed.

God is a good bookkeeper. And though there is grace and forgiveness in the gospel message that provides a deliverance for those who trust and believe, God does not suspend all the laws and principles of cause and effect … of obedience that leads to blessing, but disobedience and injustice that leads to destruction.

This sort of message was not popular in the time of Amos, nor is it popular today. In a portion we’ll not read this week in chapter 7, Amos is told to take his nasty message back home to the south where he came from … Then Amaziah said to Amos, “Get out, you seer! Go back to the land of Judah. Earn your bread there and do your prophesying there. Don’t prophesy anymore at Bethel, because this is the king’s sanctuary and the temple of the kingdom.”

That is the message of our generation as well and the reaction to the objective truths of Scripture … essentially “get out of here with that old-fashioned and ridiculous message of fairytales about a god of judgment.” But ridiculing and rejecting a message and messenger from God does not make truth any less true – then or now.  #CauseAndEffect, #Timeless