But don’t test Him. Amos 7
Amos 7 (7)
Pray Psalm 41.4-7.
I said, “LORD, be merciful to me;
Heal my soul, for I have sinned against You.”
My enemies speak evil of me:
“When will he die, and his name perish?”
And if he comes to see me, he speaks lies;
His heart gathers iniquity to itself;
When he goes out, he tells it.
All who hate me whisper together against me;
Against me they devise my hurt.
Sing Psalm 41.4-7.
(Aurelia: The Church’s One Foundation)
I cried, “O LORD, have mercy; against You I have sinned.”
My enemies pursue me and lust to see my end.
From wicked hearts they utter dark words of vanity;
with hateful voice they mutter and seek the worst for me.
Read Amos 7.1-17; meditate on verses 1-6.
Preparation
1. What did God show Amos?
2. How did God respond to his prayer?
Meditation
Judgment on the macro- and microscale are the theme of this chapter. In that respect, Amos 7 is a microcosm of the entire book. And since it comes near the end of the book, it can also be seen as a summation or denouement. Everything that comes after this is anticlimactic.
We could title Amos 7, “One Last Chance” because God relents twice from serious and devastating acts of judgment envisioned by the prophet. We can be sure that Amos proclaimed the longsuffering of God to the people of Israel.
But Amaziah shows us the heart of the nation and its people: They didn’t want to hear anything from the Lord, whether good or ill. They just wanted the prophet to be silenced, because this had been their practice with all the prophets God had sent them since the day Jeroboam led the ten tribes to break away from the two tribes in the south (cf. Amos 2.11, 12). God was willing to forgive, heal, and restore; but the hard hearts of the people of Israel neither feared Him nor regarded His threats.
Only the small remnant of those ten tribes which had made their way to Judah would be preserved. The rest, like Amaziah and his family, having spurned the grace of God and mocked His longsuffering, would receive exactly what they had chosen—the dire and disastrous consequences of rejecting the Lord.
Pray that God will relent of His wrath, first against our sins and those of our fellow believers, and then against those of the world. Pray that He will bear with us until He brings revival and renewal to His churches and a great awakening to faith in Jesus to the world.
Treasure Old and New: Matthew 13.52; Psalm 119.162
“Though you grind a fool in a mortar with a pestle along with crushed grain,
yet his foolishness will not depart from him” (Prov. 27.22).
Amaziah, I’m looking at you.
But wait, doesn’t that describe us when we neglect to be alarmed by our own sin?
Our longsuffering God tells us where we have erred in the hope that we will remediate it.
One of the Holy Spirit’s main jobs is to convict us of sin. And He does. We just don’t acknowledge His “grinding” of us and we fail to depart from unrighteousness.
But maybe we do, and that is glorious.
Because God will “strengthen the weak hands, and make firm the feeble knees…a highway shall be there, and a road, and it shall be called the Highway of Holiness. The unclean shall not pass over it, but it shall be for others. Whoever walks the road, although a fool, shall not go astray…the redeemed shall walk there, and the ransomed of the LORD shall return, and come to Zion with singing, with everlasting joy on their heads. They shall obtain joy and gladness, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away” (Is. 35.3, 8, 9, 10).
We need never be a constant displeasure to our longsuffering God and Savior.
We can be pleasing to Him through the loving power of the Holy Spirit.
Jesus said, “When He, the Spirit of truth, has come, He will guide you into all truth; for He will not speak on His own authority, but whatever He hears He will speak; and He will tell you things to come. He will glorify Me, for He will take of what is Mine and declare it to you” (Jn. 16.13, 14).
We serve a longsuffering Triune God.
“Grace to you and peace from God the Father and our Lord Jesus Christ, who gave Himself for our sins, that He might deliver us from this present evil age, according to the will of our God and Father, to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen” (Gal. 1.3-5).
We will be “ground” because we are still sinful human beings.
But we are being worked over by His pestle for a good purpose—to be fit for the Kingdom.
As Jesus said, “No one, having put his hand to the plow, and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God” (Lk. 9.62). But we are not looking back. We are living forward into the Kingdom of God and His righteousness. Because we would never want to disappoint our longsuffering God.
Reflection
1. Have you ever experienced God “grinding” you? How did you respond?
2. How would you try to help a fellow believer who was being “ground” by the Lord? How would you encourage them?
3. What’s the best way to keep from coming under the Lord’s pestle? How can you help your fellow believers avoid this?
The Prophet shows that God had not once only spared the people, but that when he was again prepared for vengeance, he still willingly deferred it, that, if possible, the people might willingly recover themselves: but as all were unhealable, this forbearance of God produced no fruit. Matthew Henry (1662-1714), Commentary on Amos 5.1-6
Pray Psalm 41.11-13.
Pray that the Lord will be longsuffering with you, and that He will strengthen, keep, uphold, and use you for His glory today and every day.
Sing Psalm 41.11-13.
(Aurelia: The Church’s One Foundation)
In me the LORD delights, for my foes shall not prevail;
since I stand in the right, LORD, I know You will not fail
to set me in Your Presence in my integrity:
O LORD, from everlasting to You let praises be!
T. M. and Susie Moore
If you have found this meditation helpful, take a moment and give thanks to God. Then share what you learned with a friend. This is how the grace of God spreads (2 Cor. 4.15).
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Except as indicated, all Scriptures are taken from the New King James Version. © Copyright 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved. For sources of all quotations, see the weekly PDF of this study. All psalms for singing are from The Ailbe Psalter.
