Read: Amos 1-6
Amos prophesied during the reigns of King Uzziah of Judah and King Jeroboam 2 of Israel. These are the things he saw 2 years before the earthquake that destroyed parts of Israel and Judah. It was God’s judgment on their sin. The earthquake happened after Uzziah went into the Temple and acted as a priest.
I always look to see how I can relate what was going on there to our present times. Amos was speaking to the people of Damascus, Gaza, Tyre, Edom, Ammon, Moab, Judah and Israel. These were God’s people and their enemies. Their enemies were being judged because of what they had done to God’s people. They had beat them down, imprisoned them, made them slaves, broke their promises with Israel, chased Israel with swords, abusing them with anger. They also stole their property and stole their harvest. They dishonored men in authority and ruined their names. What a description of what our enemy does to us. He beats us down with condemnation and disasters. His goal is to imprison us in guilt, addiction, curses, and depression. He wants to make us slaves to our past. He lies and doesn’t keep his promises. He chases us with words of discouragement and shame. He wants to steal our inheritance we have in Jesus, he will try to take our testimony and our blessing. He will do whatever he can to dishonor our spiritual leaders and tempt them to sin. We have to stand against the devil with the two-edged sword of the Word of God.
To Judah and Israel, God judged them from turning from his Word and refusing to obey him. He also judged them for devaluing their people. We as the church do these same things. We refuse to trust God when we know He is the only one we can trust. We devalue people when we only see them in the flesh and refuse to see them through God’s eyes.
God rebuked Edom for chasing down their own relatives and fighting them with swords, showing no mercy. We do that when we speak against other denominations that trust in Jesus. We all see through a glass darkly but we shouldn’t criticize our own kind. We are all learning and growing at different levels of understanding. Love covers all.
Lord, help us to walk in love.
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