The Ancients

Bible Study

Amos 9:1-4 ESV

Modern day civilization would do well to read the words of the ancients, including the Hebrew to heed the warnings of the past.

When we look at the warning to Israel from the Hebrew prophet Amos from God we can see God’s plan. While a cursory reading of the Book of Amos might lead us to think God was casual in His plan, as we look deeper we begin to see the words God spoke through Amos had a good long term plan for Israel…but Israel wasn’t listening.

They were given chance after chance after chance to listen and yet they did NOT listen to the Word of the Lord. It’s no wonder after God sent prophet after prophet and His chosen people refused to listen that God knew there was only one way forward.

Think of it this way…if you had a wayward child who repeatedly did not listen and you started giving that child warning after warning and they still refused to listen, what would you do?

Most parents I know who have faced that scenario eventually knew all was lost. They wept and wept because they deeply loved that child. But the child still didn’t listen.

Each time they took a new course of action to get their child to listen and the child still refused and all the while they suffered more and more anguish.

They loved their child. They were torn because the child would not listen.

And so it was with God and His chosen Israel.

In Amos 9:1-4 the words of the Prophet Amos from God tell us, “I saw the Lord standing beside the altar, and he said:“Strike the capitals until the thresholds shake and shatter them on the heads of all the people, and those who are left of them I will kill with the sword; not one of them shall flee away; not one of them shall escape. “If they dig into Sheol, from there shall my hand take them; if they climb up to heaven, from there I will bring them down.If they hide themselves on the top of Carmel, from there I will search them out and take them; and if they hide from my sight at the bottom of the sea, there I will command the serpent, and it shall bite them.And if they go into captivity before their enemies, there I will command the sword, and it shall kill them; and I will fix my eyes upon them for evil and not for good.”

I honestly believe after those words were spoken to the prophet, God wept. It was not the outcome God wanted but Israel would not listen.

Personally I do not think God ordered the strike.

I believe God did not stop the strike when it came.

In life when we have tried and tried to help someone and they refuse to listen to good positive advice, we have no choice but to wait for the enemy to strike. We know we tried to do everything we could to help, but they refused to listen. Ultimately we would be broken-hearted that they suffered. We would weep because of the choices they made.

And God wept.

In John 11:35 when Jesus’ friend Lazarus died, “Jesus wept”. We also know after Lazarus had been in the grave 4 days, Jesus called him out of the grave and he was alive again (John 11:38). God sent Prophet after prophet and then was silent for four hundred years and then a child was born in Bethlehem of Judaea. He was of the tribe of Judah sent to save mankind so that we might live.   

Deborah/acrazyjourney.com