Amos 9: Promised Grace

​Key Verse
14 I will restore the fortunes of my people Israel, and they shall rebuild the ruined cities and inhabit them; they shall plant vineyards and drink their wine, and they shall make gardens and eat their fruit
 
Meditation
Here is a counterintuitive truth:
The restoration and renewal we long for is experienced through God’s just judgement. 
 
In today’s reading, Amos communicates his fifth and final vision from God (1-10), one promising judgment on evil, sin, rebellion, and all who reject God. The descriptions of judgement are difficult to digest, a warning to all humanity because “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” and “the wages of sin is death” (Romans 3:23; 6:23).  Because of God’s covenant faithfulness, the dawn of a new day rises through the darkness of judgement.
 
Amos concluded his prophetic ministry with the promise of repair, rebuilding, and fruitful renewal (11-15). Amos foresaw a day when God’s people would know His promised grace and return to Him, “never again to be uprooted” (15).  A partial fulfillment was the return of exiles under Cyrus in 538 BC. Greater fulfillment came through the person and work of Jesus Christ. 
 
The apostle James described Jesus’s work as the fulfillment of God’s covenant faithfulness to the “booth of David” central to Amos’ promise (11, Acts 15:13-18). This, too, is a foretaste of the fullness of God’s covenant plan for His people to eternally experience when  Jesus returns and heaven and earth become one (Isaiah 65- 66, Revelation 21-22).
 
Jesus satisfied the judgement our sin deserves so through His work believers can experience the restoration and renewal our hearts seek. In Christ, God’s judgement is not the end of the story but a doorway to eternal glory. Through Christ’s death we find life. In Christ’s devastation believers are promised comprehensive restoration.

 
Today’s Reading
I saw the Lord standing beside the altar, and he said:
“Strike the capitals until the thresholds shake,
    and shatter them on the heads of all the people;
and those who are left of them I will kill with the sword;
    not one of them shall flee away;
    not one of them shall escape.
2 “If they dig into Sheol,
    from there shall my hand take them;
if they climb up to heaven,
    from there I will bring them down.
3 If they hide themselves on the top of Carmel,
    from there I will search them out and take them;
and if they hide from my sight at the bottom of the sea,
    there I will command the serpent, and it shall bite them.
4 And if they go into captivity before their enemies,
    there I will command the sword, and it shall kill them;
and I will fix my eyes upon them
    for evil and not for good.”
5 The Lord God of hosts,
he who touches the earth and it melts,
    and all who dwell in it mourn,
and all of it rises like the Nile,
    and sinks again, like the Nile of Egypt;
6 who builds his upper chambers in the heavens
    and founds his vault upon the earth;
who calls for the waters of the sea
    and pours them out upon the surface of the earth--
the Lord is his name.
 
7 “Are you not like the Cushites to me,
    O people of Israel?” declares the Lord.
“Did I not bring up Israel from the land of Egypt,
    and the Philistines from Caphtor and the Syrians from Kir?
8 Behold, the eyes of the Lord God are upon the sinful kingdom,
    and I will destroy it from the surface of the ground,
    except that I will not utterly destroy the house of Jacob,”
declares the Lord.
9 “For behold, I will command,
    and shake the house of Israel among all the nations
as one shakes with a sieve,
    but no pebble shall fall to the earth.
10 All the sinners of my people shall die by the sword,
    who say, ‘Disaster shall not overtake or meet us.’

The Restoration of Israel
11 “In that day I will raise up
    the booth of David that is fallen
and repair its breaches,
    and raise up its ruins
    and rebuild it as in the days of old,
12 that they may possess the remnant of Edom
    and all the nations who are called by my name,”[c]
    declares the Lord who does this.
13 “Behold, the days are coming,” declares the Lord,
    “when the plowman shall overtake the reaper
    and the treader of grapes him who sows the seed;
the mountains shall drip sweet wine,
    and all the hills shall flow with it.
14 I will restore the fortunes of my people Israel,
    and they shall rebuild the ruined cities and inhabit them;
they shall plant vineyards and drink their wine,
    and they shall make gardens and eat their fruit.
15 I will plant them on their land,
    and they shall never again be uprooted
    out of the land that I have given them,”
says the Lord your God.
 
 
Richly Dwelling
-God’s words of judgment in today’s reading are difficult to digest but His words of promise give life to a weary soul. How does understanding the former deepen the impact of the latter?
 
-Where do you look for restoration and renewal outside of the finished work of Jesus? How is that working for you?
 
-Where (specifically) do you need to look to God’s covenant faithfulness in Christ to experience the restoration He promises? Take a moment to ask God’s Spirit to give you space to embrace this promised grace.
 
Key Verse
14 I will restore the fortunes of my people Israel, and they shall rebuild the ruined cities and inhabit them; they shall plant vineyards and drink their wine, and they shall make gardens and eat their fruit