Amos 8 - Tooty Fruity

by Lance Ponder⁽⁸⁵⁾
http://fkiprofessor.xanga.com

Tooty Fruity

Amos 8:1-3 This is what the Lord God showed me: behold, a basket of summer fruit. And he said, “Amos, what do you see?” And I said, “A basket of summer fruit.” Then the Lord said to me, “The end has come upon my people Israel; I will never again pass by them. The songs of the temple shall become wailings in that day,” declares the Lord God. “So many dead bodies!” “They are thrown everywhere!” “Silence!” Amos 8 begins with a new vision. This time Amos is shown summer fruit. Summer is when fruit ripens. The fruit is picked and eaten or it rots. Either way, it is the end for the fruit. Like summer fruit plucked and put in a basket, Israel is ripe to be picked. It is said that pride comes before the fall (Pr 16:18). Israel was experiencing prosperity. They turned from dependence on God to belief in their own prowess. There lost their dedication to the one true God in favor of whatever religious practice was most profitable at the time. It takes very little imagination to see modern America in a similar place. There is relative economic prosperity and a departure from national trust in God. Like Israel, we have grown proud of our accomplishments. We are certain we are superior and all powerful. We are blind to our flaws – our sin – because we have allowed ourselves to be deceived. God did not withhold judgment from his chosen people, Israel. We would do well to remember this lesson and humble ourselves before our Creator.

Unbalanced

Amos 8:4-6 Hear this, you who trample on the needy and bring the poor of the land to an end, saying, “When will the new moon be over, that we may sell grain? And the Sabbath, that we may offer wheat for sale, that we may make the ephah small and the shekel great and deal deceitfully with false balances, that we may buy the poor for silver and the needy for a pair of sandals and sell the chaff of the wheat?” God is calling out those who plot and scheme and use trickery and deceit to take advantage of the poor. In the Torah we read that God commanded the people to care for the poor and not take advantage of them (Dt 15:11). Jesus said the same thing (Lk 14:13). Many others from prophets like Amos to the Apostles urged charity toward the poor instead of oppression and deceit. God condemns both individuals and whole societies that take advantage of the poor.

Never Forget

Amos 8:7-8 The Lord has sworn by the pride of Jacob: “Surely I will never forget any of their deeds. Shall not the land tremble on this account, and everyone mourn who dwells in it, and all of it rise like the Nile, and be tossed about and sink again, like the Nile of Egypt?” Like many rivers, the Nile floods in the rainy season and dwindles during the dry season. The floods carry rich soil from up stream. When debris from the floods settle, the delta changes. It wipes the surface features away and prepares the land for new crops. Just as the Nile delta is overcome by a flood, Israel will be overcome by the flooding forces of an army who will wipe away the inhabitants in an exile. God does not forget unrepentant sin. Such sin does not go unpunished.

Crucifixion Prophecy

Amos 8:9-10 “And on that day,” declares the Lord God, “I will make the sun go down at noon and darken the earth in broad daylight. I will turn your feasts into mourning and all your songs into lamentation; I will bring sackcloth on every waist and baldness on every head; I will make it like the mourning for an only son and the end of it like a bitter day. This particular passage is a clear and specific reference to the crucifixion of Christ on the feast day of Passover. Joel also spoke of this event (Joel 2:31) and it was Joel who Peter quoted when he preached the first Pentecost service (Ac 2:20). Three of the gospel accounts mention it was dark from about noon to about 3 pm (Mt 27:45, Mk 15:33, Lk 23:44) on that afternoon and that it was during these hours that Jesus hung and died, there were earthquakes, and the curtain in the temple was torn. It was a day of intense sadness for those who followed Jesus then even as it stirs deep emotion in those who hear of it today. It was literally a day when the Father mourned the death of His only Son. When Amos received the vision and this word from God, it seems unlikely he could have fully understood the context, depth and layers of meaning of the fruit, the judgment on those trading in the temple, and the celestial signs associated with the crucifixion. While some might argue that the prophecy seems like a disconnected jumble, it is the precision of the parts and how the literal fulfillments escalate which reveals the glorious beauty and divine clarity of God’s plan to set right what man has made wrong.

Famine of Prophecy

Amos 8:11-12 “Behold, the days are coming,” declares the Lord God, “when I will send a famine on the land—not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water, but of hearing the words of the Lord. They shall wander from sea to sea, and from north to east; they shall run to and fro, to seek the word of the Lord, but they shall not find it. Amos speaks of a time where there would be no more prophecy. People would run around seeking the counsel of prophets and would find none. Although other biblical passages suggest a period when there would be no more prophecy, a close examination of the context of each case reveals a time will come when false prophecy is removed. This passage alone most strongly suggests a coming time when there would be no genuine prophecy from God. Some scholars suggest this is the period from about the end of Haggai’s time until the birth of Christ. This is not logical, however, since there were numerous genuine prophecies made and fulfilled just before and after the birth of Jesus. Also, although the books of the Maccabeus which were written between the times of Haggai and Jesus are not included in the Protestant canon, they do contain what appear to be genuine prophecies. After Pentecost there are many cases of prophecy given and fulfilled through the Apostles and others. Jesus Christ is given many titles including prophet. This suggests that while Jesus walked the earth as a man he was a prophet. It is possible that Amos is speaking of that period of deafening supernatural silence between the ascension and Pentecost or the period between the crucifixion and the resurrection. This prophecy of Amos may be directed at the Jews who remain faithful to God yet reject Jesus as the Christ of God. This seems like the best interpretation. There have been many great scholars among the Jews since the time of Christ and the Jewish faith has survived in spite of untold persecution. Even so, no Jew apart from Christ followers have claimed to be prophets since at least the destruction of the temple in 70 AD. Jews have scattered around the globe since that time and not one Jew has stepped forward with a legitimate claim to being a prophet.

Gone for Good

Amos 8:13-14 “In that day the lovely virgins and the young men shall faint for thirst. Those who swear by the Guilt of Samaria, and say, ‘As your god lives, O Dan,’ and, ‘As the Way of Beersheba lives,’ they shall fall, and never rise again.” If the context of “that day” here refers to the period in 8:11-12, it shows that the period of prophetic silence to come is a time when false prophets are silenced. Considering the context of other such references, this makes sense. No matter how we try to interpret the period of prophetic silence, there is no doubt that God destroys false prophets. Jesus said the only unforgivable sin was blasphemy of the Holy Spirit. Uttering false prophecy in the name of God sounds very much like blasphemy of the Holy Spirit.

Majoring in the Minors

Amos Chapters: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5 - 6 - 7 - 8 - 9

Article submitted Monday, September 20, 2010 & read 192 times.

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