SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 8/25/2015
10:54 PM
My Worship Time Focus: Judgment on
the Kingdom of Judah
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Amos 2:4-5
Message of the
verses: “4 Thus says the LORD, "For three
transgressions of Judah and for four I will not revoke its punishment, Because they rejected the law of the
LORD And have not kept His statutes; Their lies also have led them
astray, Those after which their fathers walked. 5 “So I will send fire upon
Judah And it will consume the citadels of Jerusalem."”
Now as we look at these verses we do not see any
difference in the way that Amos wrote to those of Judah as he did for the
enemies of Judah and also Israel. Can
you imagine what the people of Judah were thinking when he gives his first six
messages of judgment to their enemies and then as they kept reading they see
the same judgments are coming to them. I
have highlighted in yellow the charges that God brings against Judah and they
are different than the ones of the Gentile nations that He brings charges
against for Judah is charged with not keeping the Word of God, the Law of the
Lord which they had been given on Mt. Sinai, to more that is given more is
expected and Judah was given much along with Israel. Dr. Wiersbe writes “The very idea of a Jewish
prophet classifying God’s chosen people with the Gentile ‘dogs’! ‘We know we aren’t a perfect people,’ the
people of Judah would argue, ‘but at least we worship the true and living Go!’”
When we were studying the major prophets of Isaiah,
Jeremiah, and Ezekiel we saw much evidence of why the Lord was going to judge
both Israel, and Judah and now in the minor prophet of Amos we see similar
reasons as to why God would judge Judah.
In a vision that Ezekiel saw near the beginning of his book he actually
saw what the Jewish people, the Jewish rulers and priests were doing right in
the temple of God, and they were not worshiping God, but their idols. Amos says in the last part of verse four “Their
lies also have led them astray, Those after which their fathers walked.” Now as Paul was writing his letter to the
Romans we can see some similar things as he was building his case against all
people ending with “all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. He laid the groundwork against both the
Gentile nations and the Jewish nation in a similar way that Amos was
doing. Paul was also stressing that the
Jews knew more than the Gentiles and thus were committing the greater sin.
As we look at the history of the nation of Israel, Judah
included, we saw that God would bring nations against them in order to cause
them to repent and come back to the Lord, and for a while they would do that,
but later on this was not effective for God would bring the Assyrians against
Israel to take them into captivity and later on the Babylonians to take Judah
into captivity.
We conclude with a quote from Dr. Wiersbe that will make
us think: “I don’t know why you preach
about the sins of Christians,’ a church member said to pastor. ‘After all, the sins of Christians are
different from the sins of unsaved people.’
‘Yes,’ replied the pastor, ‘they’re worse!’”
Wise words from that pastor! 8/25/2015 11:16 PM
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