Behold the eyes of the Lord God are upon the sinful kingdom, and I will destroy it from off the face of the earth, saving that I will not utterly destroy the house of Jacob, saith the Lord. Amos 9:8
Our text today is describing the history of the kingdom of Israel. At the time of Amos’ writing, there were two kingdoms that were made up of Israelites. But one of them was about to disappear. The united kingdom under Saul, David, and Solomon was broken into two after Jeroboam imposed harsh conditions when he took over after his father Solomon’s death. The ten northern tribes revolted and formed their own nation of Israel, while the southern kingdom, including the tribes of Judah and Benjamin, was called Judah. Some 200 years later, shortly after Amos wrote his prophecy, and in direct fulfilment of today’s text, the Assyrians came in and conquored Israel. They dispersed the people throughout their own empire, and those people are now referred to as the ten lost tribes of Israel. The little nation of Judah lasted only another 100 years or so until the conquest of Nebuchadnessar. And those people were also dispersed, but – in direct fulfilment of Amos’ prophecy – God miraculously preserved them. Unlike the Assyrians, Nebuchadnezzar allowed the Jews to remain as a group in Babylon, from where they were allowed to return and set up their temple worship many years later in the days of Zerubbabel, Ezra, and Nehemiah. How wonderfully accurate God enabled the prophets to be!
For those of us who like history, history books are packed full of interesting information. But history books go in only one direction; they tell you what happened in the past, not what is going to happen in the future. History books are also biased, depending on the viewpoint of the writer of the book. If you question that, read the accounts of the War of 1812 from both the Canadian and American viewpoints and note the glaring differences! But the Bible presents history from an unbiased and completely truthful and accurate viewpoint. And unlike history books, the Bible also records events that are in the future as well as in the past. And it records those future events accurately, as our text today demonstrates. If the Bible, which does not claim to be a history book, is so accurate in terms of both history and prophecy, we can surely trust everything else that is within its pages.
The difference between the disappearance of the ten lost tribes and the preservation of the tribes of Judah and Benjamin remind us that God has yet a great purpose and future for Israel. Miraculously restored in 1948, and miraculously preserved since then despite overwhelming enemies, the Israel of today is not all that God has in mind for His earthly people. Read the many prophecies in Scripture to discover that nation’s incredible future. And know that it will come to pass, because prophecy is always accurate, if it is contained in the Word of God. -Jim MacIntosh