Day 193 (Amos 6-9) - Year 4
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Hey, Bible readers, I'm Tara Lee Cobble, and I'm your host for The Bible Recap. Today we finished our 19th book of the Bible. Congratulations! All right, let's wrap up the back half of Amos. He starts by calling out the leaders of the land who relax into lives of luxury and pay no mind to the needy and poor, and who fail to notice that they've gotten so far off track in their relationship with God. He promises destruction for all the ways they've forsaken God.

In chapter 7, God shows Amos three different images, and they all foretell destruction. Twice, Amos pleads with God to relent, and he does. Remember how the prophet Jonah didn't want the people of Nineveh to repent, and God pointed out how ridiculous that was? Amos is the opposite of Jonah. He begs God to stay his hand.

But when the third vision appears, Amos starts to get the point that this is inevitable, a necessary part of God's process to turn his people's hearts back to himself. The first vision was of locusts eating a field and devouring all the farmer had to live on after he'd paid the king with the first portion of growth. The second was of a fire devouring everything. And while both of those visions involved land, the third vision is a construction image.

Amos sees a plumb line, which is a tool used to make sure a wall is straight. It's like a level, but vertical instead of horizontal. If a wall isn't vertical, it's going to collapse eventually. Leaning Tower of Pisa, your days are numbered. The metaphor God is setting up here is that the northern kingdom of Israel is about to collapse because they're so far off the standard and can't be set right. As you can imagine, none of this sits well with Amaziah, who was the priest at the time.

Amaziah goes to King Jerry too, accuses Amos of conspiring against him, and twists the prophecies to help his point. Then Amaziah tries to deport Amos. I can't imagine how this must feel for Amos. Remember how he begged God to relent? He's just the messenger here and he's being targeted. I want to give him a hug. Obeying God doesn't mean everyone will understand your motives or honor your actions.

But despite Amaziah's lies, Amos knows the truth. He knows who God is and he knows who he is to God, a humble servant sent to speak the truth. And God has more words to speak to Amaziah through Amos. He doesn't relent. Amos says that Amaziah will lose all his land, his wife will become a prostitute, and he and his kids will die. Oh, and Israel is still going into exile.

Then Amos has a fourth vision of summer fruit. And this one makes less sense to those of us who don't know Hebrew, so let me draw an analogy. Let's say God shows me a vision of my foot on the brake of a car and asks me what I see. And I say, I see brakes. And then God responds, thus will I break them in half. God's making that kind of play on words here because the Hebrew word for summer fruit is pronounced the same way as the word for end.

Then God says that the kingdom of Israel is coming to an end. In chapter 8, God promises something that is terrifying to me. He tells them he's going to take away his words, that there will be a famine and a drought of his words. They had rejected his words when they were readily available to them. They despised them. So he says, no more. And this happens not long after this point.

It's almost certainly what is referred to as the 400 years of silence that occurs between the end of the Old Testament and the beginning of the New Testament. We're still about 300 years away from that, but it's coming. The fifth and final vision is of the Lord standing beside the altar, commanding the place to be destroyed.

What place exactly? We're not sure, but it seems likely that it's referring to the false places of worship, either the places of idol worship or the shrine in Bethany where they're not supposed to be offering sacrifices to him but still are. The rest of this vision might feel harsh, but again, we have to zoom out and remember what Israel has done that led up to this. God says he has fixed his eyes on his enemies for evil and not for good.

Is this easy to swallow? No. But is this unjust? Absolutely not. And despite their sin, he's still preserving a remnant. This feels a lot like when he had to wait for all the unbelieving Israelites to die before he could bring the rest of the people into the promised land. They've earned destruction, but he promises mercy. Of all the people in this story, those who get mercy are the only ones who don't get what they deserve.

And the book ends by reminding us what part this plays in the whole story. Judgment isn't the end. Destruction isn't the point. God's goal in punishment is always restoration. And these are steps on the path to that place. God hasn't cast off his people. They're suffering the consequences of their actions, but he still loves them. His discipline is a part of his love, just like any good parent.

Yahweh promises to raise up, to repair, to rebuild, to restore. He has his heart set on restoration. He's playing the long game here, and he gives them a vision of what's to come so that they don't lose heart in the middle of the destruction. In a time when they're about to counter what will feel like his rejection, he reminds them of the great love he has for them. Today, my God shot was in 8, 8-10, where Amos is describing the day of the Lord's judgment.

The imagery and events in this section remind me of something. Does any of this ring a bell to you when it's all strung together like this? In verse 8, the land trembled. In verse 9, the sun went down at noon and the earth was darkened in broad daylight. In verse 10, there was a feast that turned into mourning. And the mourning was like that of the death of an only son.

700 years after this was written, in the middle of the celebration of the Passover feast, the land trembled and the sky went black in the middle of the day when God the Son, the only Son, died. Everything God is about to put Israel through, he went through himself. And he went through it for them to bring them back to himself. And he went through it for you and for me. Does sin require severe punishment? Yes.

Does it seem unfair? Absolutely. And the most unfair thing of all is that I'll never receive that punishment myself because Jesus took it on my behalf. He's where the joy is.

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