{"id":8623,"date":"2020-04-07T20:00:43","date_gmt":"2020-04-08T03:00:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/?p=8623"},"modified":"2020-04-05T19:22:00","modified_gmt":"2020-04-06T02:22:00","slug":"amos8_1-14","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/amos8_1-14\/","title":{"rendered":"God\u2019s Word = Your Most Important Food"},"content":{"rendered":"

Amos 8:1-14 \u00a0\u00a0Click here for Bible Verses<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Hi GAMErs,<\/p>\n

Today\u2019s passage is Amos 8:1-14.\u00a0 Let\u2019s go!<\/p>\n

Amos 8:1-3 (NIV)\u00a0<\/strong>
\n1\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0This is what the Sovereign\u00a0LORD\u00a0showed me: a basket of ripe fruit.
\n2\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0“What do you see, Amos?” he asked. “A basket of ripe fruit,” I answered. Then the\u00a0LORD\u00a0said to me, “The time is ripe for my people Israel; I will spare them no longer.
\n3\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0“In that day,” declares the Sovereign\u00a0LORD, “the songs in the temple will turn to wailing. Many, many bodies–flung everywhere! Silence!”<\/em><\/p>\n

On verses 1-3:\u00a0 Amos sees a vision of a ripe fruit basket signifying that the time is ripe for God to judge the nation of Israel.\u00a0 Verse 3 is, according to Amos, what the wrath of God against sin sounds like.\u00a0 Although verse 3 reads like a line that could be spoken by a villain in a Marvel comic book, remember who the real bad guys are in this story: it\u2019s us, the ones who turned our backs on God despite all the ways He has been kind, patient and merciful toward us.<\/p>\n

What can we learn from this?\u00a0 \u00a0Were it not for Jesus who stood in the gap and paid the price on our behalf, we would be subject to God\u2019s unbridled wrath against sin.\u00a0 When it comes to how God deals with us, Jesus changes everything.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Amos 8:4-14 (NIV)\u00a0<\/strong>
\n4\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0Hear this, you who trample the needy and do away with the poor of the land,
\n5\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0saying, “When will the New Moon be over that we may sell grain, and the Sabbath be ended that we may market wheat?”– skimping the measure, boosting the price and cheating with dishonest scales,
\n6\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0buying the poor with silver and the needy for a pair of sandals, selling even the sweepings with the wheat.
\n7\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0The\u00a0LORD\u00a0has sworn by the Pride of Jacob: “I will never forget anything they have done.
\n8\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0“Will not the land tremble for this, and all who live in it mourn? The whole land will rise like the Nile; it will be stirred up and then sink like the river of Egypt.
\n9\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0“In that day,” declares the Sovereign\u00a0LORD, “I will make the sun go down at noon and darken the earth in broad daylight.
\n10\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0I will turn your religious feasts into mourning and all your singing into weeping. I will make all of you wear sackcloth and shave your heads. I will make that time like mourning for an only son and the end of it like a bitter day.<\/em><\/p>\n

11\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0“The days are coming,” declares the Sovereign\u00a0LORD,\u00a0“when I will send a famine through the land–\u00a0not a famine of food or a thirst for water,\u00a0but a famine of hearing the words of the\u00a0LORD.
\n12\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0Men will stagger from sea to sea\u00a0and wander from north to east,\u00a0searching for the word of the\u00a0LORD,\u00a0but they will not find it.
\n13\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0“In that day\u00a0“the lovely young women and strong young men\u00a0will faint because of thirst.
\n14\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0They who swear by the shame of Samaria,\u00a0or say, ‘As surely as your god lives, O Dan,’\u00a0or, ‘As surely as the god of Beersheba lives’–\u00a0they will fall,\u00a0never to rise again.”<\/em>On verses 4-14:\u00a0 In response to the way some Israelites have taken advantage of the poor and needy (v4-6), God promises never to forget what they have done (v7) and to turn their feasting into mourning (v8-10).\u00a0 God also declares that a time will come when God will send a famine not of physical food but a famine of hearing the word of the Lord (v11-12).\u00a0 This most severe famine would result in young people losing their vigor (v13) and idol worshipers falling to their doom (v14).\u00a0 The fact that a famine of hearing God’s Word affects even idol worshipers suggests to me that in His mercy He is patiently holding up idol worshippers with His Word, waiting for them to come to the realization that it is He who holds them up, but once He takes His Word away, they are doomed.What can we learn from this?\u00a0\u00a0 When we do not treasure or obey God\u2019s Word, when we worship things other than God, we eventually lose God\u2019s Word; that is, God\u2019s Word\u00a0 becomes out of sight and out of reach for us, as if it didn\u2019t exist at all, such that for practical purposes we become like starving unbelievers again \u2013 spiritually restless, weary and lost.\u00a0 \u00a0Without God\u2019s Word we lose our vitality, beauty and strength (v13).\u00a0 Jesus is right: man shall not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of God (Matthew 4:4).\u00a0<\/strong>\u00a0Since God\u2019s Word is by far our most important food and the source of our vigor, beauty and strength, let\u2019s treasure God\u2019s Word more than anything else.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Heavenly Father, thank You for Your Word, without which I am dead and lost.\u00a0 Thank You that Your Word is my most important food and the source of my strength.\u00a0 May I cling to and treasure Your Word today and every day.\u00a0 In Jesus\u2019 name, AMEN!<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div><\/section><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Hi GAMErs,<\/p>\n

Today\u2019s passage is Amos 8:1-14.\u00a0 Let\u2019s go!<\/p>\n

Amos 8:1-3 (NIV)\u00a0
\n1\u00a0\u00a0This is what the Sovereign\u00a0LORD\u00a0showed me: a basket of ripe fruit.
\n2\u00a0\u00a0“What do you see, Amos?” he asked. “A basket of ripe fruit,” I answered. Then the\u00a0LORD\u00a0said to me, “The time is ripe for my people Israel; I will spare them no longer.
\n3\u00a0\u00a0“In that day,” declares the Sovereign\u00a0LORD, “the songs in the temple will turn to wailing. Many, many bodies–flung everywhere! Silence!”<\/p>\n

On verses 1-3:\u00a0 Amos sees a vision of a ripe fruit basket signifying that the time is ripe for God to judge the nation of Israel.\u00a0 Verse 3 is, according to Amos, what the wrath of God against sin sounds like.\u00a0 Although verse 3 reads like a line that could be spoken by a villain in a Marvel comic book, remember who the real bad guys are in this story: it\u2019s us, the ones who turned our backs on God despite all the ways He has been kind, patient and merciful toward us.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8624,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8623","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-gametime-sharing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8623","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8623"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8623\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8626,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8623\/revisions\/8626"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8624"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8623"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8623"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8623"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}