SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 10/23/2015 10:55 PM
My Worship Time Focus: PT-2 Struggling with the Authorities
Bible Reading &
Meditation Reference: Amos 7:10-17
Message of the verses: “10 Then Amaziah, the priest of Bethel, sent word to Jeroboam
king of Israel, saying, "Amos has conspired against you in the midst of
the house of Israel; the land is unable to endure all his words. 11 “For thus
Amos says, ’Jeroboam will die by the sword and Israel will certainly go from
its land into exile.’" 12 Then Amaziah said to Amos, "Go, you seer,
flee away to the land of Judah and there eat bread and there do your
prophesying! 13 “But no longer prophesy at Bethel, for it is a sanctuary of the
king and a royal residence." 14
Then Amos replied to Amaziah, "I am not a prophet, nor am I the son
of a prophet; for I am a herdsman and a grower of sycamore figs. 15 "But the LORD took me from following the
flock and the LORD said to me, ’Go prophesy to My people Israel.’ 16 “Now hear
the word of the LORD: you are saying, ’You shall not prophesy against Israel
nor shall you speak against the house of Isaac.’ 17 “Therefore, thus says the
LORD, ’Your wife will become a harlot in the city, your sons and your daughters
will fall by the sword, your land will be parceled up by a measuring line and
you yourself will die upon unclean soil. Moreover, Israel will certainly go
from its land into exile.’"”
We have two
more messages from this passage to look at in our Spiritual Diary for today. We looked at the words that Amaziah the
priest said to Amos in our last SD, but it should be mentioned that there was a
history of priests and prophets not getting along, but we must realize that
Amaziah was not a true priest of God, for they could only come from the tribe
of Levi and the family of Aaron. Dr.
Wiersbe writes “Actually, both prophets and priests were needed in the land,
because the priests ‘conserved’ the ancient religious traditions, while the
prophets applied the Word to the present situation and called people back to
God. There were false prophets, who
taught lies and sometimes worked with the priests to maintain the status quo,
and the true prophets, who had to oppose both priests and false prophets. In Israel, there were false priests who had
no valid connection with the Levitical priesthood.”
The third
message is the prophet speaking to the priest as seen in Amos 7:14-16, and these
are not very kind words, but they were true words. Amos was not the kind of man who would run
away, for if he did then we could conceive that what he was saying was not from
the Lord. Amos tells Amaziah that he was
a prophet called by God. We learned that
Amos was not a prophet where he lived in Judah, but God called him to go to the
lost sheep of Israel where he was a prophet.
While studying the OT books of the history section we learned that there
were schools for prophets to go to but Amos was not from there but a true
prophet called by God.
Next we see
that Amos proclaimed the Word of the Lord to Amaziah and what he told him was
there would be judgment coming from the Lord.
Because of the sin of Israel there would be consequences that would have
to be paid and Amos told Amaziah that his wife would have to resort to being a
prostitute, and his children would be killed, not a pleasant thing to say, but
it was from the Lord so it was true.
Amos also
told Amaziah that the nation of Israel would go into exile and that it would be
no more and this would be a big difference for Amaziah from what he was doing
when Amos was speaking to him.
Dr. Wiersbe
concludes “Many times in the history of the church, God has called humble instruments
like Amos to declare His Word; and we had better be prepared to listen and
obey. It’s not the approval of the ‘religious
establishment’ that counts, but the calling and blessing of the Lord.”
10/23/2015 11:16 PM
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