Month: March 2012

RE Verse reading–Hosea 1:1-11, 2:16-23, 3:1-5  (day three) “The Lord said to me, ‘Go show your love to your wife again, though she is loved by another and is an adulteress. Love her as the Lord loves the Israelites.’ ” (3:1)  It is when we are most like God.  It is when we are “conformed to His image” and therefore most satisfied and peaceful.  When we love.  When we give ourselves freely to others without expecting or demanding a payment in return. It must have been hard for Hosea.  So easy to get tripped up by past hurts and resentments.  So easy to live life based on whether he had received love rather than on whether he was willing to give it.  It isn’t fair. Only those who believe in God can see the wisdom and the liberty that comes from such a decision.  “But now abide faith, hope and love, these three; but the greatest of these is love.”  (1 Corinthians 13:13)

RE Verse reading–Hosea 1:1-11, 2:16-23 (day two)  “Go, take to yourself an adulterous wife” (1:2)  “Hosea is the story of a broken home and a broken heart” –Clovis Chappell.  In days prosperity and moral decline, a young prophet (Hosea) meets  a young woman (Gomer).  She is social and beautiful.  Swept off her feet by the attention of this young man with “the heart of a hero, the passion of a poet and the zeal of a saint”, she consents to marry him.  But she doesn’t stay faithful.  Perhaps his life and calling were harder than she expected.  Eventually she drifts to other lovers and a desolute life.  In the pain of his marriage, Hosea comes to see the pain in God’s heart.  God is the loving husband.  We are the petty, selfish, unfaithful wife.  Do you hear His tears with every sin?  As we study this week, we learn an important lesson.  He loves us even when we break his heart.

RE verse reading–Hosea1:1-11, 2:16-23 (day one)  “Go, take to yourself an adulterous wife and children of unfaithfulness, because the land is guilty of the vilest adultery in departing from the Lord” (1:2)  When Christ died on the cross for our salvation, He set a pattern for us all.  Obedience will cost your life.  Ministry will too.  True, there will always be some who try to bargain a softer deal.  “First, let me go and bury my father” they will say.  But the moment you make anything else FIRST, including family, you prove that you are not ready to follow.  Life isn’t fair.  Hosea will find this out. Faithfulness will cost one person one thing, another person much more.  Ultimately, none of us gets the privilege of requesting a different assignment.  Either we accept God’s path and His right to choose or we refuse.  Either we embrace the cross–and the ultimate sacrifice it represents–or we miss the opportunity to follow at all.

RE Verse reading–Amos 7:7-17, 8:1-3 (day seven)  “You say, ‘Do not prophesy AGAINST Israel, and stop preaching AGAINST the house of Isaac.’ ” (7:16-17)  I got a text from a friend yesterday.  It said, “Ok buddy, no more woe, no more gloom and doom.”  Not sure whether he was referring to recent sermons or blogs or conversations.  I texted back (yes, I know how) that preaching Amos faithfully gave me no other choice.  If “ALL Scripture is inspired and profitable” (2 Timothy 3:16), we are not well served  by skipping the part that creates a holy anxiety for rightness.  The tension is not new.  People have always preferred good news to bad.  I just wonder whether they are mutually exclusive or pragmatically compatible.  Would I be a better man if I were more afraid of some things, less arrogant?  Would we be a better country?  I think so.  I think Amos thought so too.  I will see you in worship.  We will find hope together!

RE Verse reading–Amos 7:7-17, 8:1-3 (day six)  “Behold, days are coming”, declares the Lord God, “when I will send a famine on the land, not a famine for bread or a thirst for water, but rather for hearing the words of the Lord”  (8:11)  One expression of God’s wrath is His silence.  After repeated attempts to communicate with us, He stops speaking.  It is useless to continue.  At first, we may not even notice.  Amos predicted it.  Romans 1 describes it.  “God gave them over to a depraved mind.”  C S Lewis says that ultimately we say to God “Thy will be done” or God says to us “Thy will be done” with all the terrible consequences.  The silence of God thunders His final warning.   Without His counsel and wisdom, our defeat is inevitable.  “Many, many bodies–flung everywhere.  Silence!” says Amos of Israel’s last day. (8:3)  His silence leads to our own.  May the prospect cause us to listen now while He still speaks.

RE Verse reading–Amos7:1-17, 8:1-3  “The time is ripe for my people Israel; I will spare them no longer”  (8:2)  The fourth vision (0f five) in Amos 7-9 is of a basket of ripe fruit.  God had two messages.  On one level, there is nothing more luscious than fruit that is ripe and sweet.  It is the pinnacle and reward of agricultural enterprise.  An the same time, there is nothing more short-lived.  After only a few days, ripe fruit spoils.  A picture with two sides!  When Amos spoke, the nation was experiencing prosperity.  It seemed permanent to the people.  Success always does.  Even so, the end was near.  Nothing is independent from God’s judgement.   When things are going well, it is easy to forget God, but we deceive ourselves when we feel invincible.  The hardest time, and the most important time, for humility is when we are successful.  Even then, the time is ripe.  May the Lord teach us an appropriate fear.

RE Verse reading–Amos 7:1-17, 8:1-3 (day four)  “Look, I am setting a plumb line among my people Israel; I will spare them no longer.  The High places will be destroyed and the sanctuaries ruined” (7:8)  It is axiomatic.  A wall or building that leans will eventually fall down.  Only straight walls are strong.  Gravity wins every time.  And better now than later.  It is the love of God that warns us of His strict building code.  It is His love when He pulls down those things, endeavors, patterns and possessions that will not later pass the inspection of eternity.  In the rubble of our first failure we can, at least, wake up to the problem and find the foundation again to begin building something that is more worthy.  May the Lord give us grace not to resist.  It is His love for us that pulls down all things that are not eternal.  And better now than later.

RE Verse reading–Amos 7:7-17, 8:1-3 (day three)  “Then the Lord said, ‘Look, I am setting a plumb line among my people Israel; I will spare them no longer”  (7:8)  Amos 7, 8 and 9 are traditionally called “the five visions”.  Whether Amos saw them all at once or over time we don’t know.  In the first two, Amos sees a swarm of locusts and then a fire.  Both times, he cries out for mercy from God on the people.  The third vision is of a plumb line–an old engineers’s tool for determining whether a wall was perpendicular.  With this vision, God gives a new word.  “I will spare them no longer.”  Amos doesn’t even ask this time.  It is a mistake to think, “this is how I have always been and I am doing fine so far”.  The patience of God is not His approval, nor permission to continue without the promised consequences.  Without repentance, we will all come to the end of His patience.

RE Verse reading–Amos 7:7-17, 8:1-3 (day two)  “The Lord asked me, ‘What do you see Amos?’ ” (8:7)  No one is as blind as he who WILL NOT see.  Old proverb.  Very true.  Sight is sometimes as much a function of the WILL as the eye.  Often, we don’t see things because we don’t want to see them.  Things about ourselves or our nation may be too disturbing, too convicting.   The Lord’s question is a test.  When Amos answers honestly, the conversation continues with a deeper explanation.  It is as true for us as it was for Amos.  The Lord is always willing to give more light to those who will be honest with the light they have.  Part of Paul’s conversion was the conviction that he had not been honest, not been willing to see truth that was different than he wanted it to be. (Acts 9) “Lord, I want to see again”  said the man in Luke 18:41.  May his prayer be ours.

RE Verse reading–Amos 7:1-17, 8:1-3  (day one)  “Amos is raising a conspiracy against you in the very heart of Israel.  The land cannot bear all his words”  (7:10)  His story will give new meaning to the words.  Amos was politically incorrect before it was uncool.  It is a predictable collision.  People who view truth from the perspective of man are quick to claim a “right to privacy” when a truth viewed from the perspective of God is proclaimed.  It is politically dangerous and therefore unwelcome.  The words of Amaziah , the smooth and urbane priest, are typical of our age. ” You can’t say that!” (or even believe it) “It collapses the political consensus that holds our nation together”.  No wonder the early Christians were considered traitors by Rome.  Amos is not silenced by such pressure.  We should not be either.  Not in anger or animosity,  even when it is unpopular, our task is to speak the truth in love.  Just like Amos.