The Israelites believed that God would one day judge the evil nations around them. They saw this as the inevitable consequence of the injustices wrought by these nations in the sight of a just God. They, like us, harboured a strong sense of justice. It is right that those who walk over other people and live for their own gain should receive their just desserts. Like Jonah, the Israelites would have been resentful if any of these people should escape their just punishments. What they failed to perceive, however, in their insatiable desire for vengeance against these nations, was that they themselves had become just like their enemies. They were rotting inwardly with the disease of compromise and did not realise it. God was therefore going to judge them along with the other nations, for they themselves had declared their own judgement in wishing for the destruction of evil doers. This judgement of God would be like the pruning of a bush whose branches have become diseased. To save the plant, that is, to save his people from extinction through the disease of compromise, God was going to prune them down to one small branch (the tribe of Judah, i.e. ‘the Jews’) and then grow it again from that. It would be a dramatic course of action but entirely necessary lest the salvation of the world be undermined. God doesn’t need many people for his great purpose. A few broken but self-aware, penitent and faithful people will do to grow the tree of God’s Kingdom. Which side of the pruning knife are you on?
Submit yourself to God today.
Read Amos 9
