“There was right and there was wrong. You did what was right and didn’t do what was wrong.”

                    –C.J. Petit  (Virgil’s Herd)

       “His winnowing fan is in His hand, and He will thoroughly clean out His threshing floor, and gather His wheat into the barn; but He will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire.”

                    –Matthew 3:12 (NKJV)
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     Lloyd Ogilvie sets the stage for this last chapter of Amos.  “We behold God who makes and keeps His promises.  He follows through on His promises of judgment as well as His subsequent promises of a new beginning.  His righteousness and grace are inseparable.”

          9.1 — I saw the LORD standing by 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.
            .2 — 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;
            .3 — And though they hide themselves on top of Carmel, from there I will search and take them; though they hide from My sight at the bottom of the sea, from there I will command the serpent, and it shall bite them;
            .4 — Though they go into captivity before their enemies, from there I will command the sword, and it shall slay them.  I will set My eyes on them for harm and not for good.” (NKJV)

     Amos’ fifth vision is God–the promise-keeper.  Amos is at the altar.  This should have been the place of repentance.  It was to be a place of mercy and atonement.  Instead, however, it was the place of compromise and apostasy; it was a place now desecrated and God will strike it down.  It is fitting that Amos gives forth his vision from there.  “The altar of vision symbolized the rotten core of an apostate people….  The result is that the altar, the temple, and the nation itself will be destroyed.”  (Ogilvie)
     Ogilvie continues his discourse saying the temple will be shaken.  “The judgment of the Lord, which begins with the temple, will pervade the land…   The distortion of their worship of God had permeated the heart of the nation…  Everything was wrong because the nation was not right with God.”  Judgment begins in the sanctuary; no one will escape.  “There is no hiding place from the chastening hand of God, laid on men because of their willful persistent sins.” (Garner)  It will do us well to contemplate this as now, “we are the temple of the Holy Spirit” (1 Corinthians 6:19)  Therefore, do not grieve the Spirit.  Jesus declared, “Do not think that I came to bring peace on earth.  I did not come to bring peace but a sword.” (Matthew 10:34, NKJV)  “There is no standing before His sword” (Matthew Henry) therefore be sure that you are standing on the side of the Lord so that His righteous sword will not smite you.
     “True security is submitting to God’s authority, committing each day to discern and do His will, accepting His corrective judgment, and claiming His forgiveness.” (Ogilvie).  Israel had long ignored God, refusing to acknowledge their sins and then to repent.  Like so many today, there is the presumption of God’s grace thinking that He will never hold them accountable.
     Open your ears, hear the Word of the Lord–now is the day of salvation; when judgment comes there is no escape.  Ask the souls of Noah’s day, ask those who reaped the fire of Sodom and Gomorrah.  Even those who try to hide in Sheol, the place of the dead, will be found, there will be no protection.  Is this a glimpse of the Great White Throne when hell will be thrown into the Lake of Fire.  When God searches there is no hiding place.  The judgment will be as described in Revelation, “…every slave and every free man, hid themselves in the caves and in the rocks of the mountains, and said to the mountains and rocks, ‘Fall on us and hide us from the face of Him who sits on the throne and from the wrath of the Lamb!'” (6:15-16, NKJV)  The rock cannot hide; death is not an escape from the fires of eternity.
     The people rejected the warnings; they rejected the opportunity to repent; they rejected the covenant–they rejected God.  Now it is too late.  Peter C. Craigies says, “One can never earn the privilege of God’s grace, but nor can one abandon its responsibilities without denying the privilege itself.”  The final words of verse four, “I will set My eyes on them for harm and not for good,” should cause the unrepentant to tremble.

I want to come out of a morning and look up at those hills and know nothing can be very wrong as long as there’s something so beautiful. My pa used to say that when corruption is visited upon the cities of men, the mountains and the deserts await him. The cities are for money but the high-up hills are purely for the soul.”

Your Grandma and me didn’t have a penny to our name. We fell in love and worked together to build our home. That’s part of makin’ the marriage.”
                    –Cliff Hudgins  (Grandpa and the Kid)

       “But God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us.”
                    –Ephesians 2:4 (NKJV)
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Valentine’s Day–I reckon we’re supposed to be romantic on this day.  Love just flits through the air, ahh, smell the tulips for roses ain’t bloomin’ yet.  There is young love, puppy love, sweet love, false love, pseudo love, love of chocolates and the like, then there is that true and tried love that lasts through the troubles and trials of the years.  It recalls the moments of glee and joy when actually there were those times of smelling the roses or walking down a primrose lane.  Or perhaps it was lying in a tent during a Wyoming storm that threatened to blow us away with the rain coming down in buckets.  Ahh, sweet love…
     It brought to mind a poem by Robert V. Carr, that I’ve used before.  Now, I may be a romantic, but I’m sure not the poet so I have to borrow–bear with me.

          It’s that there girl ‘most all the time,
          Fer workin’ I hain’t worth a dime;
          An’ jes’ can’t turn around or stir
          Without some foolish thought o’ her.
          Can scarcely sleep or eat my chuck–
          Dog-gone the luck!  I guess I’m stuck!

For sure I was and am stuck.  Not stuck in the mud or mire; and maybe stuck isn’t the right word–I told you I wasn’t a poet.  No, I’m tied!  The knot was securely tied fifty-four years ago this coming June.  Whooeee, what a gal.  Guess that was sorta like the Gordian Knot of Greek Mythology; it can’t be untied.  Yep, she lassoed me good and tight, or I think it was something like that.  More or less anyhow; she just got tired of runnin’ and my loop was straight and true.
     Now here’s the truth of the matter.  Love is so greatly misunderstood and the modern pundits and entertainment pushers purposely make a gross misrepresentation of true love.  Read 1 Corinthians 13 to see the real picture of love.  Let me write a few verses, but I encourage you to investigate these verses.

          “It [Love] always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.  Love never fails…” (13:7-8, NIV)

I see so many who say they “are in love” but then it falls apart.  Divorce comes–what happened to love?  What is love at all?  Or was it a foolish notion, a queasy feeling?  But enough of that, I’m supposed to be throwin’ out sweet nothin’s today.  Roses, I mean tulips, chocolates and other sweet things.  So have yourself a romantic, love-filled day.  
     And I’ll close with this one reminded, the last verse of chapter 13.  “And now these three remain:  faith, hope and love.  But the greatest of these is love.” (NIV)  Ever thought why that might be?  Here is one thing to ponder.  When we get to heaven will we need faith?  We are already there in His presence; we will have everything we need.  Hope?  It is no longer needed, the Lord has come, we don’t have to hope any longer.  But now, love–nothing “will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Romans 8:39, NIV)  Love will continue throughout eternity.  Every step we take in glory we will be reminded of the love of God and of Christ.  Just because we are there is proof of His great and wonderful love.

Man wants to sleep at night, he’d better walk tall.”
                    –John Deacon  (Kip 2)

       “‘If he has walked in My statutes and kept My judgments faithfully–he is just; he shall surely live!’ says the Lord GOD.”
                    –Ezekiel 18:9 (NKJV)
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     The last three verses of chapter two sum up the first chapters of Proverbs and set the stage for the rest of the book.  

          20 — So you may walk in the way of goodness, and keep to the paths of righteousness.  (ESV, “So you will walk…”)
          21 — For the upright will dwell in the land, and the blameless will remain in it;
          22 — But the wicked will be cut off from the earth, and the unfaithful will be uprooted from it.  (NKJV)

     Perhaps there is more to the courage of Joshua and Caleb than what first meets the eye.  These two men were the only ones over forty years of age that were allowed to enter the Promised Land.  It was promised to all, but grumbling, complaining, fear, lack of faith, and actual blasphemy against God kept the multitude out.  Caleb and Joshua were not only courageous men with tremendous faith, but they were also upright and blameless.  Right there should be a lesson for us:  fear God and walk in His ways.  Do not listen to the voices of the world.  “The safest and most satisfying path is the path of wisdom, the path of life.” (Wiersbe)
     Charles Bridges, the preacher of old, says of these few verses.  “Here is the consummating blessing of engrafted wisdom.”  The “Promised Land” is before us all, but not before we travel through our personal wilderness.  The question is, do we keep to the paths of righteousness or follow the way of the transgressor?  We need “to hide that blessed book in the heart, as the rule of life, the principle of holiness, the guide to heaven!” (Bridges)  This is how we stay on the path of the upright.
     In this day of Wokeness and DEI we need to “beware of glossing over sins with amiable or palliating terms.” (Bridges)  Evil is lurking, subtle, yet ready to snatch the unwary, complacent, or compromising traveler.  Warn your children not to follow senseless ideologies.  “Wisdom is needed to guide, to repress, to bring forth, to develop safely, and to improve fully–the mind, energies, and sensibilities of youth!” (Bridges)  We live in a day, with the pressure of the media, to follow fools, impulses, and the popular.  Bridges continues his admonition, “Shun then the society of sin, as the infection of the plague.  Keep thy distance from it, as from the pit of destruction.  Store thy mind with the preservative of heavenly wisdom.  Cultivate the taste for purer pleasures.”
     Jermin writes that “the paths of the righteous are too narrow for evil men.”  If we then walk purposely, keeping our eyes focused, our minds disciplined, and watching where we step we will walk steadily, as Caleb and Joshua, to the Promised Land.  The wicked may currently possess the things of earth, but they will not inherit them.  John tells us in Revelation, “He who overcomes shall inherit all things, and I will be his God and he shall be My son.” (21:7, NKJV)
     Notice that this portion is also prophetic in nature.  As the land was promised to Abraham, there is a brighter, more glorious land waiting for the believer–the upright and blameless.  There will be no hope for the wicked at that time for they “will be cut off from the earth” and judged then cast into the lake of fire (Revelation 20:11-15).  So listen, heed the words written here, “Walk in the way of goodness and keep to the paths of righteousness.”