Saturday, October 10, 2015

Woe to the Indifferent (Amos 6:1-2)


SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 10/10/2015 10:05 PM

My Worship Time                                                                             Focus:  Woe to the Indifferent

Bible Reading & Meditation                                                 Reference:  Amos 6:1-2

            Message of the verses:  “1 Woe to those who are at ease in Zion And to those who feel secure in the mountain of Samaria, The distinguished men of the foremost of nations, To whom the house of Israel comes. 2 Go over to Calneh and look, And go from there to Hamath the great, Then go down to Gath of the Philistines. Are they better than these kingdoms, Or is their territory greater than yours?”

            I think it best to go back to look at the outline that we looked at when we began this section as I have missed doing some of these Spiritual Diaries on Amos during the past weeks.  I want to quote from Warren Wiersbe here:  “Amos is still lamenting the impending doom of the nations of Israel.  In this section, he pronounces ‘woe’ upon four kinds of people in the kingdom:  the ignorant (5:18-27), the indifferent (6:1-2), the indulgent (vv. 3-7), and the impudent (vv. 8-14).  The circumstances are different, but we have these same people in the professing church today?  Do you recognize them?”  Well I will have to leave it up to those who read these Spiritual Diaries to determine if they anyone sees these kind of people in their churches.

            The indifferent here is referring to those who are indifferent towards God’s Word and we can see that Amos here is speaking to both Judah and also Israel as we see the words “Zion” meaning Judah, and “Samaria” which refers to Israel.  Now only are the indifferent towards God’s Word, but also on the judgment that will soon come upon them both, Israel in 722 BC, and Judah later on when the final judgment comes in 586 BC. 

            Both kingdoms call themselves the “foremost nations” believing that judgment will not come upon them because of the position they thought they had with the Lord, but they will find out that they are wrong in their thinking.

            If one remembers how difficult it was for David to conquer the city of Jerusalem when he did then they can understand why those who lived there in the time of Amos would think that it would be difficult for anyone to conquer Jerusalem at this time.  Dr. Wiersbe writes “But when God decided to deal with these cities, nothing could stop the enemy.”

            Another reason that these kingdoms though they would not be destroyed by their enemies was because of their prosperity, governments and their military strength, now as far as their prosperity we can look forward to the time of Jesus Christ being on earth and even His disciples believed that the richer you were the more that God was blessing you. 

            Amos mentions areas in Syria and also in Philistia who had already fallen to the Assyrian armies and then he asks if they thought they were better than these nations and is your territory larger than theirs? 

            Dr. Wiersbe concludes “Complacency is an insidious sin, because it’s based on lies, motivated by pride, and leads to trusting something other than God (Zeph. 1:12).  Like the people in the church of Laodicea, complacent people consider themselves ‘rich, and increased with goods’ and in need of nothing (Rev. 3:17).  In reality, however, they have lost everything that important in the spiritual life.  When the Lord sees His people becoming complacent and self-satisfied, He sometimes sends trials to wake them up.”  As I read all of the sins that the nation of Israel was committing before God judged them I can’t help but see some of the similar things going on in our country at this time in its history.

10/10/2015 10:27 PM

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