Reading the Bible Chronologically in 2022
This year, instead of reading from Genesis to Revelation, we will read the Bible as the story flows, as it happened and was written. There are several plans out there and I have worked to combine them into a plan that lets the Bible tell its own story "as it happened." Remember, the Bible is inspired, but not in the order the books appear in our Bibles. The Old Testament is approximately 3/4 of the Bible, but I have divided it so that we will spend half the year in the OT, and half the year in the NT.
Bible Readings: Amos 6-9
Background:
Isaiah was royalty, but Amos was a fig farmer and sheepherder - a nobody that God chose to do his work. He came from the southern kingdom of Judah but his prophecies were directed against the northern tribes of Israel. It is likely that Amos is the first of the written prophets.
His prophecies are vivid, beautiful, and articulate.
His prophecies are vivid, beautiful, and articulate.
Daily Devotional: God's Plumb Line
Amos 7 is a series of three visions that God gives to the prophet. The first, in verses 1-3, is a vision of a plague of locusts descending on Israel and picking the land clean. For an agricultural society, one where most people lived off the crops they could grow in their own fields, such an invasion was disastrous. Amos called out in horror to God that Israel could not survive such a plague, and God relented and did not send it.
A second vision came in verses 4-6, this time of a massive fire that would sweep through the land. If there was anything more disastrous than locust it was fire. Locust would eat the crops, but fire would destroy crops, houses, and barns, and even kill people. Again Amos called out to God for mercy, fearing that Israel would not survive such a plague, and again God relented and did not send the fire.
But then God brought Amos into his confidence and explained himself in a third vision. This time, Amos saw the Lord standing with a plumb line in his hand, standing next to a wall that was intended to be vertical. But evidently, this wall was no longer straight. It leaned. God was revealing to Amos why he was threatening Israel with locusts and fire. It was not out of cruelty, but because of their sin against his holiness. In verses 8 and 9, God says,
But that does not mean that there are no consequences when we sin. If we lean away from the righteous standards of God in our daily lives, God's discipline will fall upon us. He will correct us as a father corrects his children - and that correction will often be painful. We must be careful to walk in obedience to Christ. It is right and good to do so as a response of love to the amazing gift of grace given to us in Christ. But we also have the Spirit of God within us, who holds the plumb line of the Father in our spirits and reminds us that we must walk in holiness daily.
A second vision came in verses 4-6, this time of a massive fire that would sweep through the land. If there was anything more disastrous than locust it was fire. Locust would eat the crops, but fire would destroy crops, houses, and barns, and even kill people. Again Amos called out to God for mercy, fearing that Israel would not survive such a plague, and again God relented and did not send the fire.
But then God brought Amos into his confidence and explained himself in a third vision. This time, Amos saw the Lord standing with a plumb line in his hand, standing next to a wall that was intended to be vertical. But evidently, this wall was no longer straight. It leaned. God was revealing to Amos why he was threatening Israel with locusts and fire. It was not out of cruelty, but because of their sin against his holiness. In verses 8 and 9, God says,
“I am setting a plumb line among My people Israel; I will no longer spare them:
Isaac’s high places will be deserted, and Israel’s sanctuaries will be in ruins;
I will rise up against the house of Jeroboam with a sword.”
But that does not mean that there are no consequences when we sin. If we lean away from the righteous standards of God in our daily lives, God's discipline will fall upon us. He will correct us as a father corrects his children - and that correction will often be painful. We must be careful to walk in obedience to Christ. It is right and good to do so as a response of love to the amazing gift of grace given to us in Christ. But we also have the Spirit of God within us, who holds the plumb line of the Father in our spirits and reminds us that we must walk in holiness daily.
Father, I thank you for you love and grace, but I also thank you for your discipline that drives me back to you when I stray, when I lean to one side or the other. Set me straight!
Consider God's Word:
Do you ever ask God to spare you the consequences of your sin before you deal with the sin itself?
Remember that God does hold a plumbline of righteousness toward us to measure us. He is a holy God.
Remember that God does hold a plumbline of righteousness toward us to measure us. He is a holy God.
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