Wednesday, October 14, 2015

Death and Destruction (Amos 6:9-13)


SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 10/14/2015 11:19 PM

My Worship Time                                                                                                      Focus:  Death

Bible Reading & Meditation                                                       Reference:  Amos 6:9-10

            Message of the verses:  “9 And it will be, if ten men are left in one house, they will die. 10 Then one’s uncle, or his undertaker, will lift him up to carry out his bones from the house, and he will say to the one who is in the innermost part of the house, "Is anyone else with you?" And that one will say, "No one." Then he will answer, "Keep quiet. For the name of the LORD is not to be mentioned.’”

            We are looking at the first sub-section to the fourth main point from Dr. Wiersbe’s outline on the sixth chapter of Amos.  He has entitled this fourth main point “Woe to the Impudent,” and we looked at the introduction in our last SD and read at the end of the introduction “These impudent people, who rejected God’s warning, would one day face three judgments,” and this first judgment would be death as we read in verses 9-10.

            The situation that Amos is describing here is hypothetical and he does this to emphasize the terrors that were about to come from the invading Assyrians who would invade Samaria.  Amos may have been thinking about what he wrote in 5:3 “3  “For thus says the Lord GOD, "The city which goes forth a thousand strong Will have a hundred left, And the one which goes forth a hundred strong Will have ten left to the house of Israel.’”  Out of the hundred would be ten left and once they were this small Amos may be describing that they go into a house, however the pestilence would catch up with them, and they would die.  Dr. Wiersbe writes “If a relative came to burn the bodies (the safest thing to do in war when disease is rampant), anyone in the house guarding the bodies would deny there were others there who also might die in the plague.  But the disposal of the dead bodies wouldn’t be a ‘religious’ occasion, for the people would be afraid to even mention the name of the Lord lest He become angry and send more judgment.”

            Destruction (Amos 6:11-13):  “11 For behold, the LORD is going to command that the great house be smashed to pieces and the small house to fragments. 12 Do horses run on rocks? Or does one plow them with oxen? Yet you have turned justice into poison And the fruit of righteousness into wormwood, 13 You who rejoice in Lodebar, And say, "Have we not by our own strength taken Karnaim for ourselves?’”

            Proverbs 16:18 has something to say about what is going on here:  “Pride goes before destruction, And a haughty spirit before stumbling.”  In verse eleven Amos is speaking about the summer houses that the rich people have and they like the regular houses will be destroyed.  When the Babylonians came into Jerusalem they even burned down the temple of the Lord.  We have to believe that this was done because the Lord commanded it to be done, and the reason was the Israel and Judah both were breaking the covenant with the Lord that He made with them when they came out of Egypt.

We have two more sub-points to look at in this section and then we will go forward to look at the last three chapters as we conclude our study in the book of Amos.

10/14/2015 11:36 PM

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