II Peter 3:10

But the day of the Lord will come like a thief. The heavens will disappear with a roar; the elements will be destroyed by fire, and the earth and everything in it will be laid bare.

Our earth is slated for total judgment. 

God was angry with his people for unkind and deceitful treatment of others; lack of integrity and impurity…  moral corruption.

Judah and Israel’s sins were as self-based as those of the surrounding nations—rejection of God and glorification of self led to separation from God and His favor.

They saw THEIR sin as DIFFERENT because they were not graphically violent and as oppressive, but they were still on the entirely wrong path!

We cannot measure sin a good to bad continuum:

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Really Bad...BAD...Not So BAD...Kind of BAD...Not too bad... Pretty Good.........

Sin, immorality, impurity…  they are all the entirely wrong path.

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SELF-CENTERED PATH That Leads to DEATH and Destruction

                                                 VS.

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 God-Centered PATH That Leads to Eternal Life, Hope and a Future

They were warned about forgetting to do “right”.

They were told to come back to the Lord and live or face the judgment of destruction by God.

Their pseudo-religion was disgusting to God.  (See Amos Chapter 5).

READ ACTS 7….  He desired their hearts to be wholly His dwelling place and “self” to be evicted.

He wanted to fill them with His Holy Spirit instead of them being filled with “a spirit of religiosity” (so to speak) and self-worship.

(READ AMOS Chapters 2-6)

He is ONE God and desires to tabernacle IN us.

Amos must have been set apart or he would probably have not been CALLED.

I know he was an imperfect human, but God must have seen something DIFFERENT in Him; a desire to be FULL of God, HONOR of God’s Will and Way by upstanding moral character and integrity…  FULL of God and displaying the fruit of the Spirit (Galatians 5:22) rather than the rot of selfishness, pride and greed.

I Peter 2:1-3

1Therefore, rid yourselves of all malice and all deceit, hypocrisy, envy, and slander of every kind. 2Like newborn babies, crave pure spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow up in your salvation, 3now that you have tasted that the Lord is good.

REJECT: 

Evil Behavior

Deceit

Hypocrisy

Jealousy

Unkind Speech

ACCEPT/CRAVE:

Pure spiritual milk

Growth into a full experience of salvation

The taste of the Lord’s kindness

We don’t need complicated rhetoric—we need the pure and SIMPLE TRUTH!!!!

Can you believe unkind speech is on this list?

I want to work on my SPEECH and express the sweetness of Christ’s kindness in WORD and DEED.

Keep away from worldly desires that wage war against the soul.  Live properly—be an example to the unsaved.  Even if accused, show honorable behavior to bring honor to GOD ultimately.

I Peter 2: 11 & 12

11Dear friends, I urge you, as aliens and strangers in the world, to abstain from sinful desires, which war against your soul. 12Live such good lives among the pagans that, though they accuse you of doing wrong, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day he visits us.

READ Amos 7:1-9

Locusts and Fire Devour the land…  good and bad.

A plumb line= a standard to measure up to instead of destruction for all the pagan shrines that did NOT measure STRAIGHT and TRUE against the plumb line.

Amos sought God’s mercy and God “ RELENTED.”

God is merciful, but He is also JUST and requires us to be measured against HIS STANDARD.

Amos had a relationship where he could ask the Lord for mercy and BE HEARD!

He must have stood up sufficiently to the plumb line!  He had character and moral integrity—he obeyed God’s Ways rather than man’s “wisdom”!

Let me be the type of person that can intercede for others to God for mercy.  Let me be of such Godly character that I would be able to seek God’s face for another and have confidence of being HEARD.

James 5: 14-16 speaks of intercession for sickness and repentance of sin; seeking TOTAL healing (mental, physical and spiritual).

I desire to intercede for fullness of healing for myself and others.

The prayer of a person in right relationship with God is powerful and effective according to James 5:16.

Romans 8: 29-30 conveys that  I am given right standing with God when I answer God’s CALL. 

Let me listen, hear and answer the CALL that I may be in right standing to intercede and the results may be powerful and effective according to God’s own promise in His precious Word.