Israel REBOOTED – Saturday, 13th week in ordinary time – Amos 9:11-15

Run but you can’t hide….
Chapter 9: 1-10 is one of the strongest rebukes against Israel. It almost sounds like a lover spurned whose threats of vengeance are real. God is going to strike the capitals of the temple and allow them to fall on the people of Israel shattering their heads and those who survive this horrific calamity will die by the sword. Israel could run, but they could not hide from God and His judgment

The sword gives way to the trowel…..Israel rebooted
Yet verse 11 is an abrupt change from the strong message of rebuke and judgment. The transition from verse 10 to verse 11 is the most surprising in the entire book. The sword of judgment gives way to the trowel of reconstruction. For a while, it seemed that the reason for divine judgment was God’s revenge but that was not so. The only way to usher in a restored order was to destroy all that was not from God and God’s heart was set on rebooting Israel. God now promises to raise from the fallen nation a new people for Himself (Amos 9:11-12) and return the people to the land (9:13-15).

Repaired, raised and rebuilt…..
Long before the time of Amos, the northern kingdom of Israel rejected the royal house of David. Yet God had made a promise to King David, “Your house and your kingdom shall endure before Me forever; your throne shall be established forever” (2 Samuel 7:16). If God was going to destroy the people of Israel how would this promise come to fulfilment? It is to answer this dilemma that Amos delivers the final word of God. Israel will be sifted, repaired, raised, rebuilt as in the days of the united kingdom and not as a northern kingdom.

fruit comes from unexpected places….
Amos described how miraculous and amazing God’s blessing and restoration would be.
When God releases blessing and restoration, fruit comes from unexpected places. Normally, grapevines don’t grow well on mountains or high hills, but in the days of Israel’s restoration even the mountains shall drip with sweet wine and all the hills shall flow with it.

The prophet Amos ends the book on a note of high hope, looking forward to a day of great prosperity and abundance in Israel. Under the reign of Jeroboam II, they had material abundance, but it was not in the LORD. God promised to restore them to prosperity from Him and in Him.

Not an idle threat….
While God promised restoration and looked forward to the day when Israel would never again be pulled up from the land, Israel first had to torn down. Amos had warned the people about the threat of captivity and exile. That threat was fulfilled in 538 B.C., 200 years after Amos prophesied.

From apathy to action….
Zerubbabel returned to the land from Babylon with a group to rebuild the walls of Jerusalem (Ezra 1-6). He and the prophet Haggai stirred the people from apathy to action.
This small remnant that did return from exile rebuilt the city walls and the temple and it thrived right up to the time of Jesus.