I try to complete reading the entire Bible through once every year, I use a Bible reading plan that requires me to read a portion of Scripture from the Old Testament, the New Testament and a portion from either the Psalms or Proverbs. Occasionally, the Scripture I read can be very appropriate to the circumstances in which I find myself and then there are those other occasions when I sincerely hope that what I just read has no prophetic significance whatsoever. This week Tracey and I and the girls move to a new appointment in Rayleigh and the first verses I read in the Old Testament this morning were in the book of Amos:
" 'Your wife will become a prostitute in the city,
and your sons and daughters will fall by the sword.
Your land will be measured and divided up,
and you yourself will die in a pagan country." (Amos 7:17)
However, as I continued to read through to the end of the book, the passage did begin to adopt a prophetic tone to which I could positively respond.
Amos was called to minister to a nation that had become complacent in the extreme and a nation where social justice and national integrity were hard to find.
Verse 5 of chapter 8 refers to a people who are eager to complete their religious duties as soon as they can in order to get back to their various commercial enterprises. Verse 5 also calls into question the moral honesty of those commercial practices. Verse 6 openly condemns them and compares them to a people prepared to trade human lives for mere possessions. Yet it was verse 11 that really brought me to my knees:
" 11 "The days are coming," declares the Sovereign LORD,
"when I will send a famine through the land—
not a famine of food or a thirst for water,
but a famine of hearing the words of the LORD."
With the possible exception of what's going on in Stockholm at the moment is this not a fair description of the Salvation Army in the Western world? Are we not in the midst of a spiritual famine where we seem unable to properly grasp and understand the implications of God's Word?
As I read these words and pondered over them prayerfully I was reminded once more in a powerful and humbling way that the only path to revival for us is that painful path of corporate and personal repentance. Like the Jews who made up the congregation of Amos we have become complacent and negligent and the only way to reverse this trend is to get on our knees, cover ourselves in dust and ashes and sincerely repent.
One last quick thought, before I go and do some much-needed packing and cleaning, verse 11 of chapter 9 brings hope and I believe that the wording of this promise has special significance for the Salvation Army today:
11 "In that day I will restore
David's fallen tent.
I will repair its broken places,
restore its ruins,
and build it as it used to be,"
If we repent, if we turn from our foreign gods, smash our idols and consecrate ourselves then God will restore us, however this verse refers not to a palace or a house but to a 'tent'.
The Salvation Army will be rebuilt but not as it is now or in the pattern of some contemporary architect of religious methodology but 'as it used to be'. Tents belong to nomadic people whereas houses and palaces belong to those who dwell in cities. Does this verse indicate a return to a simpler and more reactive mission? May God make his word clear to us?
Grace and peace, Andrew
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