Today’s passage: Amos 6:1-14
Helpful thoughts:
- One of the greatest desires we have to fight against is the chief desire for a life of ease. We feel like we must be blessed by God if/when life is simple and easy, carefree.
- There’s nothing wrong with a nice house or nice cars or nice clothes, etc. But, when we want them more than to be pleasing to God, or if we are willing to sin in order to get them…
- Jesus died to save us from our sin. Sometimes we might wish he would rather guarantee us an easy life.
- These leaders is Israel and Judah were living the easy life at the expense of others who were suffering. Judgment was coming.
- The judgment would be so severe, people would be scared to even mention the name of the Lord (Verse 10) for fear they might be next, as if they would catch God’s attention and He would remember to judge them too.
Questions to consider:
- God called for righteousness and justice, what had Israel done to those terms (Verse 12, Isaiah 5:20)? What kinds of things were they doing and calling it “right” and “just” if it was being called “poison” and “wormwood” (Bitterness)?
- Can you think of any instances in our culture where evil things are called “Good” and good things, “Evil”? Or where some people have been forced to suffer for the increase of others? What is the Christian position on these kinds of issues? From where are we to be informed as we would seek to be salt and light in the world?
- As we see evils occurring around us in the world, do these passages seem to indicate that we should just sit back and watch it unfold? What is our role? What can we do? Even if it doesn’t seem like we are succeeding, what can we be confident of knowing that God is Lord and Judge?