Greetings to you all greatly beloved of God and welcome to another episode of our daily study of the Scriptures. We bless the name of the Lord God for the gift of life and for His benefits on us each new day. Praise be to God!
In our today’s episode 601, we shall be examining the book of Amos Chapter 1 titled:
Five Nations Received God’s Judgement; What They Did Will Shock You
The book of Amos was written by Amos himself according to Amos 1:1
The book was written approximately between 760 and 753 BC.
Prophet Amos was the third in the biblical ranking of the Minor Prophets. Although he was a Prophet from Judah, but his ministerial assignment was predominantly in the northern kingdom of Israel, while Jeroboam II reigns over Israel, and Uzziah reigns over Judah.
Chapter 1 presents us with the account of five nations who were neighbours to Israel, who received God’s judgement, because of their evil acts and unrepentant heart. The nations were:
Syria
These people sinned again and again, and for this reason, they were judged and punished.
What did they do exactly?
They treated the people of Gilead with savage cruelty. Read verses 3-5.
Philistia
This nation carried off a whole nation of Israel and sold them as slaves to the people of Edom. That’s terrible.
You will also find this in Jeremiah Chapter 47; and in Ezekiel 25:15-17 that they took revenge on their age long enemies and engage in hatred. Joel 3:4 also corroborated Amos’ statement.
Tyre
Amos simply mentioned briefly what Tyre did in verse 9 that they sinned again and again by carrying off a whole nation into exile in the land of Edom and did not keep the treaty of friendship they had made.
However, Prophet Isaiah had so much to say about them in Chapter 23:1–18; by Jeremiah in Chapters 25:22 and 27:1–11; Ezekiel 26:1– 28:19; and Joel 3:4–8.
The major sin of Tyre was pride. Their problem started when the nation became so wealthy from their dishonest trading with so many dishonest businessmen in those days.
As a matter of facts, Ezekiel Chapter 27 gives a long list of many of their business partners dealing with different kinds of goods. Tyre was known for exploiting these nations that had foreign direct investment with them. Not only that, Tyre was also known to be a major promoter of idolatry and all forms of immorality.
The worst part of it all, Tyre was the only nation used as a figure to represent Satan, because of the pride and greed of their King. Please read Ezekiel 28:11–19 which appears to be a two-fold prophecy – one for King Tyre himself and the other side of the coin to describe satan during his time in Eden.
And according to Ezekiel 29:17, it was King Nebuchadnezzar who fulfilled majority of these prophecies.
Edom
What was Edom’s sin?
According to verse 11, they hunted down their relatives, the Israelites, and showed them no mercy. Their anger had no limits, and they never let it die.
Remember, the Edomites were the descendants of Esau and you still remember the beef between him and his brother Jacob (renamed Israel). Jacob produced the nation of Israel while Esau produced the Edomites.
During the invasion of Judah, the Edomites too were making jest of Jerusalem. They believed they were safe in their own fortified mountains and fortresses and the worst part of it all happened when some people escaped from Jerusalem during the invasion and ran to the Edomites, instead of allowing them in, they were cut off. They did that as a revenge. What a cruel revenge, which brought lasting guilt on them. They were so proud and unruly. Please read Obadiah verses 1-14
This was the very reason God sent Prophet Obadiah to them to warn them. The same prophecy also came up in Ezekiel 25:12
Ammon
According to verse 13, In their wars for more territory they even ripped open pregnant women in Gilead.
What did they do? Well, according to Ezekiel 25:3, the Ammonites were happy seeing the temple in Jerusalem desecrated. They were happy that the land of Israel had become ravaged. They were happy that the people of Israel were captured and taken into exile.
Let me give you a short background on how Ammon got involved…
In Ezekiel Chapter 21:18-22, King Nebuchadnezzar was weighing two options and did not know which one he should go for in terms of invading either Ammon or Judah. To be sure of what to do, he performed some series of divination process:
He shook his arrows.
He consulted with his gods.
He examined the liver of an animal he killed for the divination procedure.
And boom! The oracle pointed him to Jerusalem, the fortified city.
Upon hearing this news, the Ammonites were excited and were making jest of the Jews for the attack on them and their devastation.
These were the things God saw and decided to warn the people of Judah through His Prophet Ezekiel so that they would stop sinning and return to God. Because during that time, the spiritual rule of engagement was the enemies could not attack Israel unless they found any legal ground to do so.
Warning them ahead was the best thing God could do for them but then, the final decision was theirs to make whether to heed the warnings or ignore them. Remember, God will never force Himself on anyone – there has been freedom of choice for humanity right from the time of Eden till now.
So, the people refused to listen, and this gave Nebuchadnezzar the legal ground to attack them and he succeeded. Read Numbers 22; Chapter 25 and Joshua 7 to understand how spiritual attacks works.
So, Nebuchadnezzar successfully attacked Jerusalem and conquered it and when the Ammonites saw this great achievement, they decided to form an alliance with Babylon and mock the Jews (Ezekiel 21:28).
As if that was not enough, these people became so cruel that they were killing innocent souls. They were known for cutting through pregnant women’s wombs and bringing out their babies. Prophet Amos says something about that in Amos 1:13. This was why God also sent His Prophets to warn them to see if possibly they would repent before they were attacked by the same Babylonian forces they tried to form alliance with. Read about the warning judgement here: Ezekiel 25:1-7
Sin is a killer, but the power of God through Christ Jesus saves. Believing the Message of Salvation is the antidote for overcoming sin.
And again, we must note that whenever God is warning us about a particular bad habit, it’s for our own good and we must always listen and amend our ways.
To be continued…stay tuned and stay blessed.
Let’s pray:
The Lord God will enhance your spiritual sensitivity to enable you perceive danger and escape evil traps, in Jesus name.
I declare the devil will not be able to gain any legal ground to attack you or any member of your family, in Jesus name. Remember this: if God is for you, who can be against you? Nobody.
I declare no one reading this will be a victim of kidnappers. Even as this year is gradually winding up, no one in your family will get lost, in Jesus name.
Bible Readings For Today: 1Thess Chapters 3, 4 & 5 with Psalm 148
I call you blessed now and always.
Tuesday November 24, 2020 (DDMI)
