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In Christ, Mark
In Christ, Mark
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The scriptures. May God bless the reading of His holy
word.
Then Amaziah, the priest of Bethel, sent a message to
Jeroboam king of Israel: “Amos is raising a conspiracy against you in the very
heart of Israel. The land cannot bear all his words. For this is what Amos is
saying:
“‘Jeroboam will die by the sword, and Israel will surely
go into exile, away from their native land.’”
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.”
Amos answered Amaziah, “I was neither a prophet nor the
son of a prophet, but I was a shepherd, and I also took care of sycamore-fig
trees. But the Lord took me from tending the flock and said to me, ‘Go,
prophesy to my people Israel.’ Now then, hear the word of the Lord.”
“You say, ‘Do not prophesy against Israel, and stop
preaching against the descendants of Isaac.’”
“Therefore this is what the Lord says: ‘Your wife will
become a prostitute in the city, and your sons and daughters will fall by the
sword. Your land will be measured and divided up, and you yourself will die in
a pagan country. And Israel will surely go into exile, away from their native
land.’”
Amos 7:10-17
This ends today’s reading from God's holy word. Thanks
be to God.
Everybody has a word in life.
It’s part of our every day existence, isn’t it?
God has blessed us with the ability to communicate and
everyone takes advantage of that blessing with each day they are allowed to
live. Whether they use that blessing properly or not, is another question. More
on that later.
For now, I want to make sure we all understand that
although we each have a word in life, we don’t have THE word. In other words,
there is a hierarchy when it comes to things that are said and it goes like
this:
God has the first and last word. Everyone else speaks
subordinate to Him.
Let me say that one more time for emphasis and write in
on your heart, mind, and soul.
God has the first and last word. Everyone else speaks
subordinate to Him.
Let me give you a few examples as you how this is true.
Maybe you are in a place of difficulty, let’s say
financial hardship which could have come from any number of circumstances. You
don’t know how you are going to make ends meet and don’t have any answers to
your problems. Everyone you speak to tells you the situation is impossible and
there’s no way things are going to work out.
But then, you receive a blessing. Assistance you had been
seeking comes through or some debt is forgiven or reduced. No one, including yourself,
thought things were going to work out but in the end, God had the final word.
He spoke to you through the resolution of your issues, reminding you that
through Him, all things are possible.
Let’s take another example.
You are in a marriage that has steadily been going
downhill. You and your partner seem to grow further and further apart every
day. Your words toward one another are ones of anger and disrespect when you
speak at all. All your family and friends are telling you to get a divorce and
just end things, convinced that there is no chance at reconciliation.
But then something happens. You pray over the matter and
go to the word of God where you find encouragement and conviction. You realize
where you have gone wrong in your relationship and decide it is worth a chance
to apologize to your partner for the way you’ve acted and ask for a chance to
start anew. It takes a lot of courage to admit your mistakes to your mate but
when you tell them you’ve been praying and reading the scriptures, they look at
you and tell you they have been doing the same and are equally encouraged and
convicted. Your partner tells you they have been just as wrong in the ways they
have acted. You both decide to start fresh, this time allowing the Lord to lead
and guide the relationship. Through it all, God had the last word, speaking to
both your hearts and saying, “This relationship is not over until I say it’s
over.”
Let me give you one more.
You have been diagnosed with cancer. You’re told that it’s
pretty advanced but surgery and treatment is still an option. The doctors feel
it’s worth a shot but are telling you they don’t think you’ll live more than a
year or two more if that. You talk to your family and friends about it and a
myriad of stories arise about other people who were given similar cancer
diagnoses and had not made it. No one seems to want to give you much of a
chance but you decide to go through with the surgery and treatment anyways. You
think to yourself, “Might as well do it. What do I have to lose?”
But then something happens. You go through the operation
and treatment and afterwards the doctors are amazed because you are cancer free
and in remission. They are amazed at how the cancer had left your body as they
had not seen a recovery and healing quite like it before. You feel blessed
because although your life was hanging in the balance, God had the last word,
revealing to you that He has been, is, and will always be the Great Physician.
Yes, God will always have the last word as we see further
confirmed and affirmed in our scripture passage for today. Look again at these closing
verses taken from Amos 7:
Then Amaziah, the
priest of Bethel, sent a message to Jeroboam king of Israel: “Amos is raising a
conspiracy against you in the very heart of Israel. The land cannot bear all
his words. For this is what Amos is saying:
“‘Jeroboam will
die by the sword, and Israel will surely go into exile, away from their native
land.’”
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.”
Amos answered
Amaziah, “I was neither a prophet nor the son of a prophet, but I was a
shepherd, and I also took care of sycamore-fig trees. But the Lord took me from
tending the flock and said to me, ‘Go, prophesy to my people Israel.’ Now then,
hear the word of the Lord.”
“You say, ‘Do not
prophesy against Israel, and stop preaching against the descendants of Isaac.’”
“Therefore this is
what the Lord says: ‘Your wife will become a prostitute in the city, and your
sons and daughters will fall by the sword. Your land will be measured and
divided up, and you yourself will die in a pagan country. And Israel will
surely go into exile, away from their native land.’” Amos 7:10-17
Note here that Amos is being taken to task by Amaziah who
we are told is the priest of Bethel who was unhappy with the prophesies of Amos
and sent word to Jeroboam, the king of Israel. The word Amaziah brings is
accusatory right out of the gate as he charges Amos with “raising a conspiracy”
and causing issues within the populace. At the heart of the prophesy was two
main events:
First, and of foremost interest to the king, Amos has
prophesied that the king himself would die by the sword. In other words, the
king’s days were numbered.
The king wasn’t the only one whose days were numbered
because the second thing Amos promised was exile for the people of Israel. They
weren’t going to be killed but they were going to be taken away into exile from
their native land.
All this was too much for Amaziah to take and he decided
to have a word with Amos after sending the message to Jeroboam. Essentially,
Amaziah commanded Amos to leave and go back to where he had come from, demanding
he stop prophesying, depart the northern kingdom of Israel, and head south to his
homeland of Judah (you’ll recall that Amos was originally from Tekoa, a city
twelve miles south of Jerusalem).
In essence, Amaziah had lost his mind because any real
priest of the God Most High would understand that the Lord sends His word
through messengers and as we see from the passage, Amos simply reminds Amaziah
that he is only doing what God called him to do:
“I was neither a
prophet nor the son of a prophet, but I was a shepherd, and I also took care of
sycamore-fig trees. But the Lord took me from tending the flock and said to me,
‘Go, prophesy to my people Israel.’”
It wasn’t as if Amos had taken it upon himself to go and
prophesize. Rather, God chose him to leave his life as a shepherd and farmer to
become His messenger to the nation of Israel.
What was Amos getting at?
He was basically letting Amaziah know when he rejected
the words of prophecy he spoke, he was really rejecting the words of God
Himself, something that obviously wasn’t going to work with God. We know this
from the next words that came from the mouth of Amos, words that were not his
own but rather the words of the Lord who said:
“You say, ‘Do not
prophesy against Israel, and stop preaching against the descendants of Isaac.’”
“Therefore this is
what the Lord says: ‘Your wife will become a prostitute in the city, and your
sons and daughters will fall by the sword. Your land will be measured and
divided up, and you yourself will die in a pagan country. And Israel will
surely go into exile, away from their native land.’”
You see, it didn’t matter whether Amaziah was able to
shut down the prophet Amos or not. His word would not be the last word because
that always belongs to the Lord who shared a message of judgment for the
northern kingdom of Israel.
In other words, it’s only the word of the Lord which
truly matters and that word promised peril for Israel, peril which came to pass
through the Assyrian empire who brought destruction on the north before hauling
the Israelites into captivity, just as God has promised.
Friends, I pray we are paying attention to the word of
the Lord here, a word that is imploring us to place our hope and trust in His
word, a word that urges us to have faith in Him regardless of what others say.
For in the end translation, the word of the Lord is the
only word that matters. It was true in the day of Amos, it’s true today, and it
will be true forever more.
Amen.
In Christ,
Mark
PS: Feel free to leave a comment and please share this with anyone you feel might be blessed by it.
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