When the Day of the Lord comes, nothing remains the same. His wrath falls upon sin and destroys it, along with all sinners who cling to it. His grace and mercy build up those who seek His glory.
The final vision for the Northern Kingdom is God Himself standing inside the paganized temple at Bethel. His Name was called there in vain, but when He does appear, it is for wrath upon those who rejected His Covenant. Whether Samaria liked it or not, the Covenant of Moses as originally published applied to them. Having defiled it with these temples, merely a sharp political move, those who worship there would not survive. The Lord speaks to His own wrath, commanding the temple be knocked down on the heads of those who worshiped there. The few who escaped would be taken by the sword. No matter where they flee in this world or the Other, there is no place where God cannot pursue them.
Samaria had forsaken not merely their peculiar national deity, but this is the very Creator of all things. The earth cannot bear His Presence, and Heaven can hardly contain Him. The Northern Kingdom had made themselves so pagan, they were no different in God’s sight than the most remote Gentiles of the earth. He who called the nations to move here and there upon the face of the earth could as easily wipe them off the earth. So the sinners of Israel would be destroyed, but the House of Israel would remain, populated by a righteous remnant, whose population would be swelled from among the Gentile nations of the earth.
All nations would be sifted as grain, and nothing fruitful would be lost. Those who trust in their own wisdom and talents would be destroyed. What Amos says next was taken by the Samaritans as mere political statement, but he’s not talking about some mere earthly kingdom of David. He prophesies the Lord would build a new Kingdom of the Spirit, a Messianic promise of the future Davidic Realm in the hearts of men. It would be everyone from the human race who embraces this Messiah. What the Law had symbolized in earthly terms was a divine blessing on Life in the Spirit, an outpouring of richness too great to measure. No one will be able to take them from that spiritual land of Eternity.
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ehurst@radixfidem.blog
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