Today, I am reading and commenting on Amos 6-9 and Obadiah.

I am going to do something today that I rarely do.  I am going to combine thoughts I get from the end of Amos with thoughts I get from Obadiah into one message.  I am ordinarily not inclined to see this as a valid reading, but I think today it brings us a message.

Amos tells us in chapter seven that God gave him two visions of how He was going to bring His judgement against Israel, the Northern Kingdom.  After each vision, Amos begs God not to bring such a judgement because the people would not survive it.  I believe the implication in what Amos said was that even the righteous would be wiped out by such judgements so that all of Israel would be destroyed.  God listened to Amos and withdrew each of those judgements.  Instead, God told Amos that He was going to set a plumb line among His people.  Those who failed to measure up against the plumb line would be destroyed.  Amos goes on in chapter eight to speak of the ways in which the people of Israel failed to measure up to God’s standard.  Amos speaks of those who celebrate God’s festivals, but impatiently wait for them to end so that they can resume their dishonest practices by which they take advantage of the poor and needy.  He tells the Israelites that the day of God’s judgement is coming.  Which brings me to what Obadiah had to say.  While Obadiah primarily prophesied against Edom, he said that the day of God’s judgement is for all nations, for all people.  We will all be judged by what we have done.  Let us allow God’s Spirit to transform us so that we do the things which God asks of us for without His Spirit, without the Spirit of Christ, we can do nothing except that which brings God’s judgement upon us.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

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