Gary Gleans

Micah warns the nation that their sinful lifestyle has brought down God’s wrath upon them.  God does not tolerate sinfulness without consequence.  The people thought that because of their status before the Lord they could simply live however they wanted and that nothing would happen.  They ignored the instructions of God, they ignored the prophets of God, they ignored the warnings of God but they would not be able to ignore the judgment of God.  The same could be said of the world today.  Our society has become ignorant of God’s Word, scoffed at those who teach it and have not fear of God’s wrath.  The only way that man will recognize God and life in fear of Him is through judgment. A LEADER’S LUST: Israel had been led by leaders who were only motivated by their own lusts.  They constantly wanted more land and more riches and more power.  When they could not achieve what they wanted through legitimate means; they would simply go and take what they wanted by violence.  God would se

Micah writes to both the nation of Israel and Judah, but mostly to Judah.  As he writes Israel is about to be overthrown by the Assyrians and his message is one that calls for Judah to wake up from their slumber so that they do not suffer a similar fate.  Micah and Isaiah write at the same time and have similar messages but Isaiah was focused more on Jerusalem and the leadership of the nation while Micah lived in a more rural setting and his focus was on the people in general.  This first chapter starts out with a stern warning for the nations of Israel and Judah and ends with Micah’s lament over the plight of his people. MICAH WARNS ISRAEL AND JUDAH: Micah calls for the people of both nations to hear his message.  It is a message of warning that the Lord has been observing the lives of the people and is coming down to judge the nations for their evil acts and idolatrous worship.  The Lord’s judgment will melt the mountains and the valley will open up to swallow them.  The reason

Anger reveals the truth about our own hearts.  When we become angry it shows us what we truly love and the picture may not always be very pretty.  Jonah becomes very angry in this last chapter.  We would expect for him to rejoice because of the effectiveness of His ministry, the grace of God and the salvation of souls.  The truth is that Jonah did not want any of that.  His anger reveals a lack of compassion for the souls of men.  Our anger is also very revealing.  We will often become angry when we suffer some kind of loss or even when our sports team suffers a loss.  How often do we become angry about the suffering of others or blasphemy against the Lord? JONAH IS ANGRY OVER NINEVEH’S SALVATION: It becomes very clear that Jonah ran away from God’s command in the first place because He had no love in his heart for the people of Nineveh.  He wanted them to be destroyed and He did not want to warn them of the coming judgment because he knew that God would likely forgive them if the

Jonah’s prayer of repentance brought him to dry land once again, but God was not done with Jonah yet.  Once again God calls Jonah to go to the very same task he had been given to do before all of the trouble in Jonah’s life.  God was determined to have His message preached in Nineveh and He was determined that Jonah would be the one to preach that message.  This is clearly a demonstration of God’s grace on both the city and Jonah.  God could have easily just turned His back on Jonah and called another preacher to go do His work.  However, that would have left Jonah in a place of rebellion against God.  As always, God is longing to have men restored to fellowship with Him.  Bringing Jonah to obedience and Nineveh to repentance are illustrations of God’s grace. JONAH’S OBEDIENCE: This time when God called Jonah to go and preach against the city of Nineveh; he went.  The city of Nineveh was a massive place that took three days to walk across.  Jonah does not try to argue with God or

Pain is a wonderful blessing from God.  None of us like pain because of the way it makes us feel but without it we would not be able to liver very long.  Pain is God’s way of warning us that something is wrong and motivating us to change in order to find relief.  If I put my hand too close to a fire, the pain I feel will let me know my hand is too close and will motivate me to move it away as quickly as possible.  Pain also has a way of making us draw closer to the Lord and turn away from our sin.  Jonah was disobeying God but feeling no pain until his body hit the water in the midst of a storm and he began to tire and sink to the bottom of the ocean.  God spared his life by sending a fish to swallow him which in and of itself must have been a very painful experience.  Jonah, now in the belly of a fish, continues to be in pain and knows that death must be imminent.  Jonah’s pain motivates him to call out to the Lord from whom he had been running. JONAH PRAYS FOR DELIVERANCE: Jonah

Jonah is one of the best know narratives of God’s Word.  This chapter is all about Jonah’s refusal to obey God and the consequences of his disobedience.  Jonah refuses to preach to the people of Nineveh and decides to run from the presence of God.  This proves to be harder than Jonah might have thought and has consequences far beyond what Jonah might have imagined.  God demonstrates His compassion for a sinful nation and His determination to use a sinful prophet.  It is clearly a dangerous thing to live in rebellion against a sovereign God.  God continues to show His compassion for sinful nations by calling His children to go and preach in these places.  Unfortunately the story of Jonah repeats itself far too often in the lives of the men and women God has called to warn the nations for who Christ died.    GOD CALLS JONAH BUT HE IS UNWILLING: God’s instructions to Jonah are very clear.  He is to go to Nineveh and proclaim God’s judgment on the city because of their sin.  Nineveh w

Obadiah is the shortest book in the Old Testament and his message is directed at Edom who are the descendants of Esau.  We are accustomed to the prophets speaking to the nation of Israel, but this book is a little different.  Edom had been a threat to Israel from the very beginning.  Even though there may not have been very much outright aggression against Israel; Edom was not an allay either.  The two nations had been at odds since the time of Jacob and Esau and the rivalry only intensified with the passing of each generation.  God intends to judge Edom and sends Obadiah not only to warn them but also to comfort Israel from their fears of being attacked and overrun by this neighboring nation. THE EXPECTATION OF JUDGMENT ON EDOM: God has determined to judge the nation of Edom.  They were a strong nation that lived in a very secure location.  They saw themselves as eagles soaring in the skies and nesting on the top of a high mountain.  They did not consider the possibility that the

Amos closes his book with two very distinct promises.  One is a promise of destruction the other of restoration.  It is a very dangerous thing to continue in sin as God’s wrath is full and complete.  God is faithful to keep His promises to the nation of Israel and will continue to fulfill them in the time that He has determined.  However, the generations who have rejected Him and trusted in their own holiness and followed after false gods are forever lost and without hope.  Every individual responds before God regardless of nationality.  We can all take God’s warning of judgment seriously and we can all find hope in God’s promises if we trust Christ. A PROMISE OF DESTRUCTION: Amos sees a vision of the Lord beside the altar making a declaration of destruction on the nation of Israel.  He promises to wage war on the cities of the nation and kill the inhabitants both on the inside and the outside of the cities.  There will be no place to hide from the wrath of God.  From the pit of h

God shows Amos a basket of summer fruit that is about to spoil.  This is an illustration of what is about to happen to the nation of Israel.  They had been prosperous and God had provided for them in an abundant way; but those days were just about to pass.  Just as the fruit would soon rot in the basket so the bodies of the nation of Israel would rot in the streets.  It is a blessed thing to experience prosperity but it is also a very dangerous thing as it will often lead to pride, sinfulness and the judgment of God. THE RESOLVE OF GOD’S JUDGMENT: God has made a decision and will not turn back from that decision.  The sins of the nation have become so great that God has resolved in His heart to bring about judgment.  For generations He had tolerated their sinful practices and idolatry.  He passed by them in hopes that they would repent and turn to Him.  Those days are over.  He will no longer tolerate this nation and has firmly resolved to bring the nation to judgment.  We live in

It is very easy for us to be misunderstood.  We may be doing the very best thing possible for someone but they may still misinterpret it as being harmful to them.  Amos was called to be a prophet of the Lord.  He did not choose to be a prophet and had been happy to be a farmer but when God calls you to do something you do it with all of your heart no matter how men may misinterpret our actions.  The desire of Amos’s heart was to serve the people by warning them of God’s impending judgment.  This is not a popular message but it is a very important message as the hard truth is always more helpful than easy lies.  AMOS REQUESTS FOR GOD TO HAVE MERCY ON THE NATION: God revels to Amos three different ways that He plans to judge the nation of Israel.  First He shows Amos a plague of locust that will come and devour the land.  Amos knows that this will bring great financial burden to the people and cause starvation to the poorest people of the nation so He prays for God to relent and God

Relativity is one of the key components of today’s society.  Relativity is the belief that there is no objective standard for truth.  It gives everyone the right to determine what is true for them but would never admit that this truth could be imposed on someone else.  That almost sounds like a good way to live, but we must understand that relativity is a lie from the pit of hell.  Amos writes to a group of people who are convinced that they are right but he is striving to demonstrate to them just how wrong they are.  This is the task of every preacher of God’s Word.  We must confront the lies of a relativistic society with the truth of what God’s Word reveals. FALSE HOPE: The children of Israel were living under the delusion of false hope.  They had placed their trust in many things that were not in line with God’s Word.  First of all they thought that they were secure because of their geographic location.  The mountains surrounding them afforded a protection from invasion that t

Judgment is coming on the nation of Israel.  God calls Amos to warn the people of this fact and call the people to repent of this sin so they might live.  Unfortunately, the people largely ignored his warning and refused to repent so they were hauled off into captivity and many of them were slaughtered in battle or consumed by the various plagues sent upon the people.  God has repeatedly called His people to repent but many have refused this grace.  Sinful men prefer to follow the idols of their own hearts over worshiping the God who created the heavens and the earth.  The Day of the Lord is coming and it will usher in a time of judgment on the earth much more complete than the judgment of the nation of Israel.  The only means of escaping this judgment is to repent and trust the Lord. A REQUEST FOR TRUE REPENTANCE: Amos calls the people to a life of true repentance.  He tells the people that God is planning to judge the nation in such a way that on ten percent of the population wi

When we discipline our children we always try to make sure they know exactly why they are being disciplined.  God is doing exactly that with the children of Israel in this passage.  He wants to make sure the people of Israel clearly understand why they will be judged, how He had warned them in the past and that there would be no escaping from this judgment.  There could be no doubt as to what was going to happen as well as why it was going to happen.  God does not take the judgment of mankind lightly which is why He has gone to such great lengths to warn us of the wrath to come.  God’s judgment of Israel and many other nations is simply a small foretaste of the final judgment He has prepared for all the earth. This is a reality for which we must prepare and call all men to prepare. THE PROBLEMS THAT CAUSED JUDGMENT: Amos calls the nation of Israel cows of Bashan, most likely because this was a lush land and the cows there were especially fat.  It was a reference to the fact that t

God will do what He says He will do.  He does not make false warnings or veiled threats; but He does warn the people of His wrath to come so they might repent and turn to the Lord.  People often are lulled into a false sense of security, thinking that they can continue to walk in sin without any consequences from the Lord.  God’s patience is often misinterpreted as God’s lack of ability to judge the earth.  Nothing could be further from the truth.  God has repeatedly judged the earth as well as the individual sins of men and nations.  His Word is full of warnings and the workings of His wrath have been repeatedly revealed on the earth.  Israel was about to experience this reality so God faithfully lets them know of the coming judgment.    GOD’S WORDS OF WARNING: God established a unique and covenant relationship with His people Israel when He established them through Abraham and He demonstrated His commitment to that covenant by setting them free from Egypt.  They were favored by

As I read this chapter and the one preceding it, I am struck by the sameness of the nations of Judah and Israel to the other nations that have been mentioned.  God had called them to be a distinct nation from those surrounding them.  They were to be separated and holy unto God as an example to these nations and as a means of God using them to reach these other nations.  Unfortunately, they tried to do all they could to become just like all the other nations around them.  The desire to “fit in” and be just like everyone else is one of the most dangerous desires we carry in our hearts.  When God saves us He calls us to be sanctified or separate from the world.  He wants to use us as instruments of His grace to reach a fallen world with the Gospel of Christ.  The only way we can be effective at doing that is if we are distinct from the world.     MOAB: The Moabites were descendants of Lot, Abraham’s nephew just like the Ammonites.  These two nations started as the result of Lot’s inc

God knows the future.  He knows what He is doing and is in full control over the events of this world.  People often live as if God were unaware or powerless to do anything about the sins of men.  All men and all nations will be held accountable before God.  He takes into account the sins of a people and He will bring judgment down upon them in His time.  Amos uses his first two chapters to announce God’s judgments on the nations.  He explains why they will be judged and how they will be judged.  Though there were many sins, Amos foretells a very similar judgment of all of them with only small variations.  God may stand by patiently allowing sinfulness in a people but the day will come when His patience will end and He will have accumulated multiple reasons to justify His judgment of the nations. DAMASCUS: Amos starts out with a warning to Damascus of their coming judgment due to the way that they waged war with Gilead.  This is a condemnation of Syria because of their brutality a

As the Lord moves throughout the history of the world He uses nations to bring about judgment on His people and then He moves to judge those nations.  When we see a nation like Babylon being used to bring about judgment on Israel we should not assume that Babylon is in some way more godly than Israel.  In fact, just the opposite is true.  God may use them as an instrument of His judgment so that He can later be proven to be the objects of His judgment.  We may not always understand God’s methods or be able to see how His workings in history will come together for His glory, but we can be assured that He is in control and that He knows exactly what He is doing. THE PROMISE OF REVENGE: The nations surrounding Israel invaded the land and took the people captive.  This was all a part of God’s plan of judgment for His people.  However, in taking the people captive these godless nations also desecrated the temple of the Lord taking the gold and silver from the temple of God and hauling

Joel looks to the day of the Lord in which God will step to the forefront of history and fulfill His promises of both judgment and blessing.  None of these stages should come as a surprise because they have all been foretold many times before beginning with Moses and going right up through the other prophets.  God had determined to bless His people but sometimes that blessing can only be brought about through judgment.  God works through difficulties in our lives and will often promote suffering in our lives so we will be able to learn the importance of holiness and experience the joys of forgiveness. RETRIBUTION: Joel describes the methodical advance of the armies that will march on the nation of Israel.  This will take place as a part of God’s retribution for the sins of immorality and idolatry that have become common place in Israel.  God will judge the nation and bring it to its knees.  A great and powerful nation will fall like fire on the land and all will be consumed in its