The judgment of the Lord begins at the house of the Lord. Amos sees the Lord at the altar, in the
temple and the command is given to strike the capitals, the tops of the pillars
supporting the temple, bringing it down on those who are in that holy place. From there the judgment of God goes forth
wherever the people may be, there is no place to hide. This condemnation of the nation is
frightening, He will find them and destroy them no matter where they may go to
hide from Him. The Lord says they are
like the Cushites, the Ethiopians, and compares what He did in bringing them
out of Egypt with what He did with other nations, nations not in covenant with
Him, saying they are now no better to Him than these pagan nations. Their sinfulness and rejection of Him are so
complete they are no longer recognizable even to Him who loved the nation and
provided for it. There is the promise of
a remnant but not much. What does He see
when He sees the church today?
I think we often strain at gnats and swallow camels
today. What preoccupies us sometimes is
not unimportant but not as important as we make it out to be. We overlook things that are truly important
to Him because they are our particular sins while we rail against the sins of
others. We have an important stewardship
of the earth and often we ignore that commission. We are also commissioned to go and tell, make
disciples, teach them to obey all Jesus commanded, to love one another, to love
God with all that we are, and what would be Jesus' summary judgment on how
we're doing with all that, personally and collectively? As with Amos, the judgment of God begins with
the leaders of the people but it doesn't leave out the people themselves. All have a responsibility to the Law, none
are ignorant, but the teachers have a special obligation to ensure that the
people indeed understand it. Judgment
always begins with those who have been entrusted with the Word.
The church in Smyrna does not come in for judgment. They are reassured concerning the coming
judgment of the Jews among them who have been slandering them. The Lord is aware of the persecution,
suffering and poverty they have endured.
They will, however, have to endure some further suffering and
persecution. Some will be thrown into
prison and others will die. The call is
to persevere to the end in faith and the promise is a crown of life. It may not be encouraging in one sense but
ultimately they have to decide if this life is more important than the next,
eternal life. It seems a simple
math. To the church in Pergamum the Lord
says He knows how difficult it is to be where they are, in the place of Satan's
throne, but they have compromised themselves in matters of sexual ethics. They have accepted the sexual mores of the
Moabites and the Nicolaitians. We hear
too many in the church today who believe "it's only sex" but we see
here that these issues matter greatly to God.
We have a responsibility to the world to let it know and see what God's
intention is in these matters rather than follow its example.
No comments:
Post a Comment