Can I pray for you in any way? Send any prayer requests
to OurChristianWalk@aol.com.
In Christ, Mark
In Christ, Mark
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
** Follow The Christian Walk on Twitter @ThChristianWalk
** Like posts and send friend requests to the author of
The Christian Walk, Mark Cummings on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/mark.cummings.733?ref=tn_tnmn
** Become a Follower of The Christian Walk at http://the-christian-walk.blogspot.com
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The scriptures. May God bless the reading of His holy
word.
The Lord has sworn by himself, the Pride of Jacob: “I
will never forget anything they have done.”
“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.:
“In that day,” declares the Sovereign Lord, “I will make
the sun go down at noon and darken the earth in broad daylight. 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.”
“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. 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.”
“In that day, the lovely young women and strong young men
will faint because of thirst. 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.”
Amos 8:7-14
This ends today’s reading from God's holy word. Thanks
be to God.
The Israelites had angered God through their sinful
actions and in response, God promised punishment in many forms. Those forms had
mostly been physical in nature as God assured His people that their land would
be destroyed and they would be displaced, taken into captivity and exiled to a
foreign land.
But as we find in the closing verses of Amos, chapter 8,
the penalty God would impose on the Israelites would not just cover the
physical, tangible parts of their lives but the spiritual as well. Look again
at these words from the Sovereign Lord:
The Lord has sworn
by himself, the Pride of Jacob: “I will never forget anything they have done.”
“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.:
“In that day,”
declares the Sovereign Lord, “I will make the sun go down at noon and darken
the earth in broad daylight. 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.”
“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. 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.”
“In that day, the
lovely young women and strong young men will faint because of thirst. 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.”
Amos 8:7-14
Note God promised to not overlook the sins of His people,
vowing to “never forget” what they had done. He would hold them accountable for
their transgressions and blatant disrespect and disregard for Him and the way
He commanded them to live. He would send attacking forces from Assyria and
Babylon to assault Israel and Judah respectively, bringing extreme hardship and
difficulty to the Israelites. God’s people would be left in a state of mourning
and weeping, driven to wear sackcloth and shave their heads, both symbols of
deep emotional grief. There would be absolutely no room for joy because God’s
ire was coming upon the Israelites in full force.
How could it get any worse?
God shows us through His word that it could and would.
For not only was God taking away everything He had
blessed His people with, their homeland and homes and security, but He was also
withdrawing His word. The Israelites would seek to find some form of guidance
and direction, any inkling of comfort and assurance but they would be left
void. God likened the removal of His word to a famine as the people would come
hungering and thirsting to hear from Him but find nothing, no matter where they
sought it.
In other words, the Israelites were going to suffer
spiritual starvation and dehydration. God provided a vision of the young,
lovely women and strong men, fainting from this spiritual malnourishment. And God
promised that those who tried to seek satisfaction through turning to gods would
fall and never rise again.
It was a pretty bleak picture of what was to come, a
picture that was bleak enough before the Lord took away His word.
Today, we find people deprived of the word just as the
Israelites were in Amos’ day but it isn’t because God has somehow taken His
word away. Rather, His word is more readily available today than ever. The
problem is that people decide to ignore the word of God. They starve themselves
spiritually because they seek their own wisdom or the wisdom of the world and
end up with what amounts to foolishness.
How do I know this?
Because the scriptures tell me, especially these words of
Jesus who was simply quoting Old Testament words from Deuteronomy:
“Man
shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of
God.” Matthew 4:4
With this, God’s word is asking us today, “How healthy
are you spiritually? Have you been feeding yourself spiritually from My word or
are you spiritually famished?”
Where do you size up when it comes to these questions?
If you have found yourself away from the Bible and all
blessed instruction within, then I pray you will recommit yourself to the
scriptures today and make it a part of your daily discipline. For unlike many
things of the world that will leave you feeling unfulfilled and empty, Jesus
promises us the following when we come to the word of God, hungry and thirsty
for what it provides:
“Blessed are those
who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.” Matthew 5:6
Amen.
In Christ,
Mark
PS: Feel free to leave a comment and please share this with anyone you feel might be blessed by it.
Send any prayer requests to OurChristianWalk@aol.com
No comments:
Post a Comment