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Tag: God

In case you missed it, Church..
“that you also love one another!

This is the NEW COMMANDMENT of Jesus.

The Lord Jesus does NOT instruct followers to ‘love the world’ (as God so loved-the world…), but HIS first NEW commandment is to LOVE ONE ANOTHER.

Jesus asks the Apostles who have been together for three years as a church, iterate followers in community with and taught by the Lord Jesus, to love one another.

We know from story after story how competitive His Disciples are, but now that Jesus will return to the Father His command is that they MUST love each other.

Church

Previously we examined the possibility of who Jesus commanded in:
1. In case you missed it, friend.. and
2. In case you missed it, disciple.. and
3. now I pose Jesus’ command to the church.
NO, the building is NOT the Church.

From an earlier post: Amos – For those who turn justice into wormwood

We may also point ahead to more obvious application of his warning to the church of these last days.

Have you ever really met the ‘christians’ who come to your church?

It’s really difficult in this impersonal 21st century #social environment!

Our relationship to others of the Church pales by comparison to the close personal relationships of the Apostles to each other or even that of the saints of the first century church. Yet have we, the church’ possibly missed a relational community commanded by the Lord Jesus?

Let’s first look to a definition of church and scriptural application.

Church – ἐκκλησία

It’s pronounced Greek: ek-klā-sē’-ä (Key )

Vine’s Expository Dictionary: View Entry Assembly:

from ek, “out of,” and klesis, “a calling” (kaleo, “to call”), was used among the Greeks of a body of citizens “gathered” to discuss the affairs of State, Act 19:39. In the Sept. it is used to designate the “gathering” of Israel, summoned for any definite purpose, or a “gathering” regarded as representative of the whole nation. In Act 7:38 it is used of Israel; in 19:32, 41, of a riotous mob. It has two applications to companies of Christians,
(a) to the whole company of the redeemed throughout the present era, the company of which Christ said, “I will build My Church,” Mat 16:18, and which is further described as “the Church which is His Body,” Eph 1:22; 5:23,

(b) in the singular number (e.g., Mat 18:17, RV marg., “congregation”), to a company consisting of professed believers, e.g., Act 20:28; 1Cr 1:2; Gal 1:13; 1Th 1:1; 2Th 1:1; 1Ti 3:5, and in the plural, with reference to churches in a district.

Since “It has two applications to companies of Christians, it’s worth restating from this definition of church:
- (a) to the whole company of the redeemed throughout the present era, the company of which Christ said, “I will build My Church,” Mat 16:18, and which is further described as “the Church which is His Body,” Eph 1:22; 5:23,
- (b) in the singular number (e.g., Mat 18:17, RV marg., “congregation“), to a company consisting of professed believers, e.g., Act 20:28; 1Cr 1:2; Gal 1:13; 1Th 1:1; 2Th 1:1; 1Ti 3:5
Church briefly defined then is:
- ALL of the CHURCH, every true follower of Jesus, Master and Teacher of the Church.
- EACH true believer joined to the CHURCH personally, relationally, locally and beyond all measure of both distance and time.
This is the Church which the Lord Jesus commands by saying, “Love one another, as I have loved you.”

We are called to Him, therefore we are called into relationship with Jesus AND His church.

And we are called out – to take His love, visible to seekers of the Lord in His Body the Church, the Personal Love of Jesus in the Holy Spirit by which He builds us into His eternal love.

A New Commandment

John’s Gospel builds the case of Jesus’ Authority, questioned by the Jews to whom He was sent.

Before addressing Jesus’ New Commandment given to the Disciples just after the last supper, take a brief look at His explanation about His obedience to God the Father.

A Chain of Command from the Father

John 10 & 12:

“I am the good shepherd, and I know My own and My own know Me…
… they will hear My voice; and they will become one flock with one shepherd.
… the Father loves Me, because I lay down My life so that I may take it again…
I have authority to lay it down, and I have authority to take it up again. This commandment I received from My Father.”
excerpt John 10 NASB

And Jesus cried out and said, “He who believes in Me, does not believe in Me but in Him who sent Me. He who sees Me sees the One who sent Me.
John 12:44-45 NASB

49 “For I did not speak on My own initiative, but the Father Himself who sent Me has given Me a commandment as to what to say and what to speak.

50 “I know that His commandment is eternal life; therefore the things I speak, I speak just as the Father has told Me.”

John’s Gospel has already set the scene for Jesus’ New Commandment. Let the church hear what our Master and Teacher Christ Jesus says to the church.

John 13:

“I give you a new command:
Love one another. Just as I have loved you,
you are also to love one another.
By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”
John 13:34 CSB

Beloved believer, does everyone know that Christ Jesus is your Teacher and friend? Does the world see your Lord and Savior by your love for one another of His Church?

Are you truly, my fellow saint, a disciple of Jesus?

Do you and Christ’s Church love one another? (And remember, they know us by our love of one another or deny Christ by our lack of love for each other).

The Comfort of Christ’s Authority

John 14:

“Do not let your heart be troubled; believe in God, believe also in Me.

6 Jesus told him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you know me, you will also know my Father. From now on you do know him and have seen him.”

10 Do you not believe that I am in the Father, and the Father is in Me? The words that I say to you I do not speak on My own initiative, but the Father abiding in Me does His works. Believe Me that I am in the Father and the Father is in Me…

“If you love Me, you will keep My commandments.
John 14:15 NASB

The Spirit of Obedience

Witness by the Holy Spirit of the LORD

Recall that John’s Good News of Jesus Christ, the Apostle’s Gospel of witness begins before time:

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

2 The same was in the beginning with God.

The Apostle John was first a young disciple of John the Baptist, known to many as a Prophet of God. John witnesses:

32 John testified saying, “I have seen the Spirit descending as a dove out of heaven, and He remained upon Him. I did not recognize Him, but He who sent me to baptize in water said to me, ‘He upon whom you see the Spirit descending and remaining upon Him, this is the One who baptizes in the Holy Spirit.’
34 I myself have seen, and have testified that this is the Son of God.”
John 1:

John also opens his Gospel testifying to the Authority of Jesus through the same Holy Spirit of the Lord God.

Jesus answered, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.
John 3:5-6

34 For He whom God has sent speaks the words of God; for He gives the Spirit without measure.

35 The Father loves the Son and has given all things into His hand. He who believes in the Son has eternal life; but he who does not obey the Son will not see life, but the wrath of God abides on him.”

Do you hear the Spirit of Truth?

“… but he who does not obey the Son will not see life!…

Do you, beloved disciple of the risen Lord Jesus recall this?

Do we, HIS CHURCH, have ears to hear Christ’s commandment to the Church – “Love one another, as I have loved you:” is this not for us?

John 15:

αὕτη ἐστὶν ἡ ἐντολὴ ἡ ἐμή ἵνα ἀγαπᾶτε ἀλλήλους καθὼς ἠγάπησα ὑμᾶς
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answer in a minute in case you don't read Greek
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4 Live in me, and I will live in you…

6 Whoever doesn’t live in me is thrown away… and dries up… gathered, thrown into a fire, and burned.

Could this apply to some of a luke-warm church?
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The Revelation of Jesus Christ to John
3:16 ‘So because you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of My mouth.
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9 Just as the Father has loved Me, I have also loved you; abide in My love.

If you obey my commandments, you will live in my love. I have obeyed my Father’s commandments, and in that way I live in his love.
The Master & Teacher, Jesus – John 15:10 GW

… be as joyful as I am, and your joy will be complete.
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Answer below to English translation of the Greek above.
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“This is My commandment, that you love one another, just as I have loved you.
John 15:12

A Commandment from the Cornerstone

Verily, verily, you may know is a Hebrew tool of emphasis by saying something twice, here meaning truly, truly. The youngest of Jesus’ Jewish Apostles now emphasizes the strong personal relationship of our Lord’s NEW COMMANDMENT a third time.

Here was John recalling this most important time preceding Jesus’ crucifixion and resurrection. Do you recall the intimicy of this setting in the upper room?

John 13:

So when He had washed their feet, and taken His garments and reclined at the table again, He said to them, “Do you know what I have done to you?

“You call Me Teacher and Lord; and you are right, for so I am…

“Truly, truly, I say to you, a slave is not greater than his master, nor is one who is sent greater than the one who sent him.
John 13:16 NASB

There was reclining on Jesus’ bosom one of His disciples, whom Jesus loved… He, leaning back thus on Jesus’ bosom, said to Him, “Lord, who is it?”

This is the Apostle John, youngest of the Lord’s young Disciples, laying at Jesus’ breast as they all reclined at table. Consider what John means to have recalled Jesus’ emphasis on a New Commandment to love one another.

THE KING OF THE JEWS is about to become the SACRIFICE for sin on a Cross in Jerusalem!

Prophesy of Isaiah

Therefore, hear the word of the LORD, O scoffers,
Who rule this people who are in Jerusalem…

28:16 לָכֵ֗ן כֹּ֤ה אָמַר֙ אֲדֹנָ֣י יְהוִ֔ה הִנְנִ֛י יִסַּ֥ד בְּצִיֹּ֖ון אָ֑בֶן אֶ֣בֶן בֹּ֜חַן פִּנַּ֤ת יִקְרַת֙ מוּסָ֣ד מוּסָּ֔ד הַֽמַּאֲמִ֖ין לֹ֥א יָחִֽישׁ׃

Therefore thus says the Lord GOD,
“Behold, I am laying in Zion a stone, a tested stone,
A costly cornerstone for the foundation, firmly placed.
He who believes in it will not be disturbed.

And Jesus said of the church:

… upon this rock I will build My church; and the gates of Hades will not overpower it.
Jesus, of Simon Son of John, who the Lord then called ‘Peter’ or ‘the rock’ – Matthew 16:18b

In the intimacy of an upper room meal with the Lord Jesus, who had washed the Disciples feet, it was Simon Peter who motioned to John to ask Jesus who His betrayer would be. Judas departs then the Lord COMMANDS three times that they must LOVE ONE ANOTHER.

This is My Command

12 “This is my command: Love one another as I have loved you.

13 No one has greater love than this: to lay down his life for his friends.

14 You are my friends if you do what I command you…

Are you, beloved, a friend of the Lord Jesus? And do you, fellow disciple, love one another – His Church?

“This is what I command you: Love one another.
“If the world hates you, understand that it hated me before it hated you.
Comman and encouragement of the Lord Jesus – John 15:17-18 CW

‘He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.’
The Revelation of Jesus Christ to John (numerous times)
April 29, 2020
Lazarus – Death and Resurrection
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Death and Resurrection
 Hosea 13:4 I have been the Lord your God
 ever since the land of Egypt;
 you know no God but me,
 and no Savior exists besides me.
 5 I knew you in the wilderness,
 in the land of drought.
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“Moses didn’t give you bread from heaven, but my Father gives you the true bread from heaven. God’s bread is the man who comes from heaven and gives life to the world.”
Yeshua told them, “I am the bread of life…
John 6:32b,34a NOG

The Death and Resurrection of Lazarus

John has already introduced us to those Jesus loves. Lazarus – HELP from the grave.

Now after a considerable walk from somewhere beyond Judea, Jesus arrives in Bethany.

Jesus walks into a scene of death visited by mourners who loved Lazarus but also religious officials from Jerusalem who sought to accuse their Messiah of blasphemy for previous signs on the Sabbath.

As reminder of both heavy hearts and hard hearts in the crowds:

John 6:

30 So they said to him, ‘What sign are you going to give us then, so that we may see it and believe you? What work are you performing?

… 40 My Father wants all those who see the Son and believe in him to have eternal life. He wants me to bring them back to life on the last day.”

John 11

17 When Jesus arrived, he found that Lazarus had already been in the tomb four days. Bethany was near Jerusalem (less than two miles away).

He arrives at the funeral of Lazarus. No talk of death and resurrection here, just wailing and mourning his loss.

19 Many Jews had come to Martha and Mary to comfort them about their brother. When Martha heard that Yeshua was coming, she went to meet him.

“Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. But even now I know that God will give you whatever you ask him.”

Lord God

Ἰησοῦν κύριε – Iēsous kyrios – Jesus Lord

Martha addresses their Messiah and friend.

“I know that God, theos in greek referring to any gods, but for Jews and followers of Christ (a Greek word for Messiah), Martha’s confidence in God includes a mysterious relationship between this Son of Man and the HOLY SPIRIT of the LORD God!

“God with” – ὁ – ho – with the Holy Spirit, the very breath of life which hovered over creation.
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Gen 1:2
וְהָאָרֶץ הָיְתָה תֹהוּ וָבֹהוּ וְחֹשֶׁךְ עַל־פְּנֵי תְהֹום וְרוּחַ אֱלֹהִים מְרַחֶפֶת עַל־פְּנֵי הַמָּֽיִם׃
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“Who are you with,” we would ask?

Jesus, God with us, frequently answered religious critics with personally relational replies like,

“God is spirit, and those G3588 who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth.”

Now, out of compassion for a deceased friend and love for the family of Lazarus, the Messiah Jesus returns to Judea with nothing more to prove. (For the Lord had already raised others from death and healed some near to death of likely life-ending ailments to a cleansing of the flesh with life!)

Death and Resurrection

Death and resurrection always have connection. Will you rise again from the grave?

For Jesus’ friend Lazarus, temporary restoration of health and life in his case. Yet all understand judgment by the Lord God requires a raising of the spirit of your soul to life.

After flesh fails and bones decay to dust and ashes will the Lord also breathe life into a new body of each soul?

“..even now I know that God will give you whatever you ask him.”

23 Yeshua told Martha, “Your brother will come back to life.”

24 Martha answered Yeshua, “I know that he’ll come back to life on the last day, when everyone will come back to life.”

25 Yeshua said to her,

“I am the one who brings people back to life, and I am life itself. Those who believe in me will live even if they die. Everyone who lives and believes in me will never die.

The Messiah of God!

Do you believe that?”

Pause to think:

“I am life itself!” Those who believe in Jesus ( יְהוֹשׁוּעַ ) will live even though we die. The Lord God IS our Salvation!

27 Martha said to him, “Yes, Lord, I believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of God, the one who was expected to come into the world.”

She has said this – that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God – with witnesses surrounding her home — Jews who believe and Jews looking for excuse to kill Jesus.

… she went away and called Mary her sister, saying secretly,

“The Teacher is here and is calling for you.”

When Mary heard this she sprang to her feet and went to him.

30 (Yeshua had not yet come into the village but was still where Martha had met him.) The Jews who were comforting Mary in the house saw her get up quickly and leave. So they followed her…

The Messiah approaching death and resurrection

Compelling drama! – with much expectation.

Those who loved this family and mourned the loss of Lazarus would not have expected Mary’s sudden joy. Rather, they followed her to continue their expected public mouring for the death of a fellow Jew.

Imagine their surprise at the scene about to unfold.

33 When Yeshua saw her crying, and the Jews who were crying with her, he was deeply moved and troubled.

34 So Yeshua asked, “Where did you put Lazarus?”

They answered him, “Lord, come and see.”

35 Yeshua cried.

36 The Jews said, “See how much Yeshua loved him.”

An appropriate witness of the true personal compassion of the Lord Jesus. Yet listen to the dissent of hardened hearts.

37 But some of the Jews asked, “Couldn’t this man who gave a blind man sight keep Lazarus from dying?”

Jesus hears our complaints and the Messiah hears our kind words. All those comments of the crowds did not matter to the Son of Man sent to this place to weep – sent here to suffer for our sins.

38 Deeply moved again, Yeshua went to the tomb.

It was a cave with a stone covering the entrance.

39 Yeshua said, “Take the stone away.”
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To be continued...
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March 28, 2020
Amos the Seer: “I told you so (5x) – GOD showed me
I told you so!

Don’t we hate to hear it? While occupied in our own daily trespasses we stop up our ears to any who would warn of our sins: “Thus the Lord GOD showed me, and behold…”

And to make things worse, in the day of our demise the seer such as Amos could well lament, “I told you so, but you refused to listen.”

Amos 5:

Listen to this message that I am singing for you, a lament, house of Israel…

We’ve heard Amos previously warn:

Those who turn justice into wormwood
also throw righteousness to the ground.

Now the seer shows signs he tells Israel’s leaders ‘the Lord GOD showed me.’

Would a leader – a king, premier or president – dare ignore something that a seer [Amos] says the Lord God showed me?

How could a priest serving a people pledged to God not hear Amos when he demonstrates ‘what the Lord God showed me?’

Wailing in the streets

16 Therefore thus says the Lord God of hosts, the Lord,

“There is wailing in all the plazas,
And in all the streets they say, ‘Alas! Alas!’

… For I will pass through you,”
Says the Lord.

It is not as if the LORD leads them out of their troubles as before from Egypt through the wilderness and before Israel subduing her enemies in the promised land.

Woe to you who long for the day of the Lord!
What will the day of the Lord be for you?
It will be darkness and not light.
Amos 5:18 CSB

The seer shows the fear of the LORD that will consume a man fleeing an enemy arrived safely at home, but there bitten by a snake.

Are we not all prey of the serpent of eden without the Lord God?

Rather than consuming Israel’s offerings for sin on the altar the Lord would consume Israel!

The Day of the Lord

20 Will not the day of the Lord be darkness instead of light,
Even gloom with no brightness in it?

21 “I hate, I reject your festivals,
Nor do I delight in your solemn assemblies.
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We will have more about festivals to consider
when returning to the Gospel of John shortly.
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22 “Even though you offer up to Me burnt offerings and your grain offerings,
I will not accept them…

The Lord will no longer accept Israel’s worship!

23 Take away from me the noise of your songs!

25 “House of Israel, was it sacrifices and grain offerings that you presented to me during the forty years in the wilderness?

Amos reminds that they had nothing to offer there before the pillar of fire of the LORD!

Idolatry

NO OTHER GODS!

The Law of the Living LORD our God is quite clear: He IS GOD and idols (even of good “Saints” or a Jesus of stone) are not. Yet Israel became a whore on the mountaintops of the stone images of idolatry.

26 וּנְשָׂאתֶ֗ם אֵ֚ת סִכּ֣וּת מַלְכְּכֶ֔ם וְאֵ֖ת כִּיּ֣וּן צַלְמֵיכֶ֑ם כּוֹכַב֙ אֱלֹ֣הֵיכֶ֔ם אֲשֶׁ֥ר עֲשִׂיתֶ֖ם לָכֶֽם׃
Amos 5:27 WLC

27 Therefore I will send you into captivity beyond Damascus,”
Says the Lord, whose name is the God of hosts.

Woe to those at ease

We have heard this before from the Prophet Isaiah who also preached against rituals and idolatry after Amos. The true prophet so often warns, “This is what the LORD God showed me.”

Warning & Advice to Scoffers Who Rule
Isaiah speaks to scoffers of God. Yet are your ears this day so filled with twisted speech that you do not even understand the significance of his warning?

Amos now warns the rich who govern and direct worship in Israel.

3 Woe to you who put far off the day of doom,
Who cause the seat of violence to come near;
4 Who lie on beds of ivory,
Stretch out on your couches,
Eat lambs from the flock
And calves from the midst of the stall;
5 Who sing idly to the sound of stringed instruments,
And invent for yourselves musical instruments like David;
6 Who drink wine from bowls,
And anoint yourselves with the best ointments,
But are not grieved for the affliction of Joseph.

… now go into exile … And the sprawlers’ banqueting will pass away…

Judgment on Jacob

8 The Lord God has sworn by Himself,
The Lord God of hosts says:
“I abhor the pride of Jacob,
And hate his palaces;
Therefore I will deliver up the city
And all that is in it.”

God showed me five signs
I will leave it to you to read the five signs Amos tells us, ‘the Lord God showed me.’

Let the Holy Spirit convict the church!

The Lord Jesus, Redeemer of Israel, later showed signs no other Prophet could ever do. Yet even the Messiah Jesus was not believed.

So how do you think Amos was received by the leaders of the land and their appointed teachers and priests?

The five signs build in intensity and importance.

A brief glance

7:2 When the locusts finished eating the vegetation of the land, I said, “Lord God, please forgive! … So the Lord relented…

4 The Lord God showed me this: The Lord God was calling for a judgment by fire. It consumed the great deep and devoured the land. 5 Then I said, “Lord God, please stop! …

“This too shall not be,” said the Lord God.

7 Thus He showed me: Behold, the Lord stood on a wall made with a plumb line, with a plumb line in His hand. And the Lord said to me,

“Amos, what do you see?”

And I said, “A plumb line.”

Opposition

10 Amaziah the priest of Bethel sent word to King Jeroboam of Israel, saying,

“Amos has conspired against you right here in the house of Israel. The land cannot endure all his words…

12 Then Amaziah said to Amos, “Go away, you seer!

Amos responds to the priest with the anointing of the Lord in his calling.

“I was no prophet…, But I was a sheepbreeder.

I will spare them no longer

What do you think?

The Lord has relented from punishment for sin. Will you repent?

And once again, the Lord holds back and does not punish. Will you now repent?

So the Lord measures the place of your worship, the people of His pasture. It is a time for harvest, a festival of blessing in times before.

3 In that day the temple songs will become wailing”—this is the Lord God’s declaration.

“Many dead bodies, thrown everywhere!

Silence!”
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Do you now FEAR THE LORD?
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4 Hear this,

you who swallow up the needy,
And make the poor of the land fail…

10 I will turn your feasts into mourning
and all your songs into lamentation;
I will cause everyone to wear sackcloth
and every head to be shaved.
I will make that grief
like mourning for an only son
and its outcome like a bitter day.

11 Look, the days are coming—
this is the declaration of the Lord God—
when I will send a famine through the land:
not a famine of bread or a thirst for water,
but of hearing the words of the Lord.
12 People will stagger from sea to sea
and roam from north to east
seeking the word of the Lord,
but they will not find it.
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SILENCE! of the LORD. Do you hear it?
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God’s Judgment Unavoidable

Did you repent when you heard the word of the Lord?

And did you bow down when the Lord showed you mercy?

Now, therefore, the Lord stands beside the holy altar of worship and Amos speaks the unspeakable judgment of the Lord upon the people of His Own covenant.

I saw the Lord standing beside the altar, and He said,

“Strike the doorposts, that the thresholds may shake,
And break them on the heads of them all.
I will slay the last of them with the sword.
He who flees from them shall not get away,
And he who escapes from them shall not be delivered.

“Though they dig into hell,
From there My hand shall take them;
Though they climb up to heaven,
From there I will bring them down;
The word of the LORD – Amos 9:2 NKJV

The further words of the Lord paint a fearful judgment and death of the people of His promise, a covenant Israel has broken.

The Prophet Amos confronts you and says, God showed me all this that you might repent. Do you?

All the sinners of my people shall die by the sword, which say, The evil shall not overtake nor prevent us.
Amos 9:10 KJV

The ending that is not yet the end

Amos offers only a distant glimmer of hope.

“On that day I will raise up
The tabernacle of David, which has fallen down,
And repair its damages;
I will raise up its ruins,
And rebuild it as in the days of old…

The Lord God will once again accept worship by the sons of David. Yet how?

We will learn more of this next in returning to the Good News of John.

וְשָׁפַכְתִּי֩ עַל־בֵּ֨ית דָּוִ֜יד וְעַ֣ל יֹושֵׁ֣ב יְרוּשָׁלִַ֗ם ר֤וּחַ חֵן֙ וְתַ֣חֲנוּנִ֔ים וְהִבִּ֥יטוּ אֵלַ֖י אֵ֣ת אֲשֶׁר־דָּקָ֑רוּ וְסָפְד֣וּ עָלָ֗יו כְּמִסְפֵּד֙ עַל־הַיָּחִ֔יד וְהָמֵ֥ר עָלָ֖יו כְּהָמֵ֥ר עַֽל־הַבְּכֹֽור׃
http://blb.sc/009Nio

“I will pour out on the house of David
and on the inhabitants of Jerusalem,
the Spirit of grace and of supplication,
so that they will look on Me whom they have pierced;
and they will mourn for Him,
as one mourns for an only son,
and they will weep bitterly over Him
like the bitter weeping over a firstborn.
Zechariah 12:10 NASB
March 21, 2020