#DailyDevotion You Can’t Stop The Judgment
Amos 7 This is what the Lord GOD showed me: there was a basket of late summer fruit. 2“What do you see, Amos?” He asked. “A basket of late summer fruit,” I answered. “The end has come to My people Israel,” the LORD told me. “I will not overlook their wrongs anymore. 3That day the songs in the palace will be a howling,” says the Lord GOD. “So many dead bodies! Everywhere they will be thrown down silently.”
You can’t stop God’s ultimate judgment. Sure, you can always repent but there will come a point where you are not going to do so. So while the Ninevites repented and God relented, even though God did not promise He would, the point in time has come for the Israelites where they are at the point of no return. They are not going to repent and the LORD is bringing judgment upon them. The same thing happened to the kingdom of Judah later. The LORD even told Jeremiah to not intercede for them anymore. He was not going to listen.
Judgement is coming upon this world. God has appointed the Church to proclaim it and the available salvation from the judgment in Jesus Christ. The LORD has given the world plenty of signs judgment is coming and they should repent. Revelation chapter 9 notes, “They did not repent.” I watch a lot of fantasy shows which sometimes include those involving witches, sorcerers and other related people. I find it interesting when they lift signs of the end coming from the Bible, i.e. four men of the apocalypse, they think they can save the world if they can stop one of the signs, or a seal, or a trumpet or a vial. They don’t repent. They think they can stop it. That isn’t too far from the truth of how the world thinks. They are willing to do anything to stop the end of the world and judgment other than do what it takes to escape judgment—repent of their sins and turn to Jesus for salvation.
The judgment against Israel stands as a witness as to the Day of Judgment. For them they were pictured as a basket of late summer fruit. God isn’t overlooking their sins any longer. A day of great distress is coming upon them. The Assyrians, a most vicious people, were being sent by the LORD to kill His rebellious people. Everywhere the countryside and cities were be littered with dead bodies.
So it will be on the Day of Judgment for the world. We get a picture of it in Revelation 19. All the nations come up to destroy the Church and to defeat the Lamb. Jesus Christ, the Lamb, shows up with the heavenly hosts. These angels aren’t cute little cherubs. These are merciless spiritual beings. The slaughter of earth’s inhabitants will be great. Jesus calls the birds of the air to devour their dead bodies. “Where the dead bodies are, there the vultures will gather.” But that isn’t the end for them. They are all raised from the dead just like us Christians. They will have to stand before Christ Jesus and be judged. They will be found guilty and be thrown into the fiery pit to be tortured for all eternity with the rebellious angels.
There is still time though for you and me. We can still repent of our sins today and turn to Jesus Christ for salvation from our sins. We can still be covered in the blood of the Lamb in baptism so the second death passes over us. There is still time for your neighbor to hear the good news and turn from their flesh, sin and the devil and put their faith and fate in the hands of a loving Savior.
Merciful and Almighty Father, grant that we would repent of our sins and turn to Jesus, Your Son to escape the great and terrible day of judgment at His hands. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.