#DailyDevotion Don’t Despise The Election Of Your God
Amos 9 5When the Lord GOD of armies touches the earth, it quakes, and all who live there mourn. All of it rises like the Nile and goes down again like Egypt’s river. 6He Who built stairs into heaven and set His sky over the earth, Who calls the water of the sea and pours it on the ground — He is called the LORD.
I don’t know why they always translate Adonai with Lord. Sure it means lord but when it runs up next to YHWH (Yahweh, Jehovah), then they run into trouble since they substitute LORD for YHWH so they then translate YHWH as GOD (all caps is to designate YHWH). Why not just treat Adonai as a proper name as it only refers to God in the Old Testament? In any case, the LORD is pulling out His big names again in Amos here to demonstrate His omnipotence. He is all powerful. When He touches the earth big things happen. There are earthquakes and people mourn. The earth goes up and down like the Nile river. We can’t totally control nature but He can and does. It is the LORD who created the heavens and the earth and everything in them. The sky, the seas, the land, it is all His to do with as He pleases. Normally, it is for our benefit. At other times it can be for judgment and calling us to repentance. He brings this up to tell us that His threats aren’t merely threats. He isn’t all bark and no bite. What He warns will happen, He will bring it to pass at the right time.
7“Aren’t you Israelites like the people of Ethiopia to Me?” asks the LORD. “Didn’t I bring Israel up out of Egypt, the Philistines from Crete, and the Syrians from Kir? 8You see, the Lord GOD is looking at the sinful kingdom, and I will wipe it off the face of the earth but not totally destroy the people of Jacob,” says the LORD. 9You see, I’m ready to give the order and will sift Israel among all the nations as something is sifted in a sieve, but not a kernel will fall to the ground. 10The sword will kill all the sinners of My people who are thinking, ‘Destruction will not catch up with us or get at us.’
What is the LORD saying here? He is telling the Israelites not to depend upon their partriarchs’ relationship to the LORD nor their forefathers’ relationship to Him. While the LORD chose them, He also chose them to be holy as He is holy. Since they have broken fellowship with Him, He has broken fellowship with them. As sinful, unrepentant people, they cannot rely on the LORD’s protection. The reverse is true. Since they act like the nations, the LORD will treat them like the nations. While the LORD took the Israelites out of Egypt, He also moved the Philistines from Crete and the Syrians from Kir. (Sidenote to the archaeologist out there, this could make a good dissertation for a Phd., proving the Syrian people in the eighth century were originally from Kir).
Verses eight and nine are really emphatic. They start off with, “You see!” In Hebrew it is “hinneh.” Sometimes it is translated as “behold.” They should pay attention. Judgment is at the door. Destruction is coming their way. Those who think will escape having been warned by the prophet, the LORD will make sure gets killed. The LORD will sift the people of Israel among the nations, but if there are any good ones, they would be preserved.
As God’s holy people then, let us not despise our election but make it sure by daily repentance and using the means of grace on a regular basis to be made holy and righteous by Him.