A Remnant Remains
I believe in a God who can do all things. I believe in a God who can do great things – bring peace to places of war, bring water to places of thirst, bring health to places of plague… and a God who can do little things – like mend the relationship between two neighbors, see a lost dog home to a loving family, or give a weary nurse a moment of respite in a hectic day.
I believe in a God who answers prayers, great and small. A God who keeps his word and means what he says. And also, a God who is capable even of sometimes speaking in metaphor. Who isn’t afraid of a little hyperbole and some symbolism.
To some extent that’s where I think we have to go when we look at our scripture from the Book of Amos. Now, you’ll notice that we read two parts – one from the near beginning of the book where it talks about the sins of Edom and how God will not relent. That because the nation of Edom pursued his brother with a sword and slaughtered the women of the land, God will send fire on Teman (one of the clans of Edom) and consume the fortresses of Bozrah (the city of Edom’s kings).
And then we pick up at the end of Amos. Where he prophesies that Israel will be restored, that God will rebuild her walls and her ruins and that they will possess the remnant of Edom.
This remnant of Edom… is a testament to God’s temper… both in the anger of God’s temper in that he will reduce Edom to a remnant… but also that God’s anger will be tempered in that Edom will not be wholly destroyed.
Last week we talked about Edom in the prophesy of Obadiah and that God would shame Edom and make it small among the nations – not just small, but that Edom will be covered in shame and destroyed forever.
Here’s the thing…
Amos and Obadiah are saying much the same thing… but they’re probably writing close to 200 years apart. Obadiah is likely to be a contemporary or near-contemporary of Jeremiah, writing at the beginning of the exile. But we think Amos’s words pre-date Obadiah by about 150, 200 years. Everything that Amos is saying now. Every threat of God, every warning of anger, every accusation of Edom raising the sword against its brothers – against Israel… repeats again generations later in Obadiah.
Edom is a repeat offender.
Though descended of the tribes of Isaac, they’ve taken sword against their brothers, the Israelites, the tribes of Jacob, again and again. And so Amos prophesies against them. And Obadiah prophesies against them. Other prophets do too – Joel, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and Isaiah… basically the prophesies of doom and gloom against Edom far outweigh the very little good that the scriptures say about them.
And so God takes them to task. Over and over, again and again, from generation to generation.
With promises and prophecies of complete and total destruction, that God will wipe them from the map and Edom will be no more.
Except that they are still God’s people. The tribes of Esau, the elder sons of Isaac, the scions of Abraham.
And so in God’s accusations and threats and in his judgment against Edom, as we saw in Obadiah and in the first chapter of Amos, we still see a glimmer of mercy, as in the last chapter of Amos. That as Israel is restored and the House of David brought back up, that the remnant of Edom will remain. That God’s vengeance is not total; his judgment is not absolute. That even though Edom has sinned time and time again against their brothers, the tribes of Israel, that even God lets a remnant remain. To give them a second chance. And a third chance. And a fourth chance.
As best as we can tell, it will be 200 years from the time of Amos to the time of Obadiah. And Edom will survive those 200 years, in spite of God’s judgments against it. And from the time of Obadiah onward, Edom will continue on for another 500 years or so as a kingdom in its own right, sometimes free and sometimes as a vassal, until its conquest and assimilation by Alexander the Great in the 2nd century BC.
Which means, I think, that God even at his angriest, in his most wrathful moments, is not afraid to say a lot of things – to prophesy the worst doom and destruction we can imagine. Yet at the same time, when punishment comes, yes it’s terrible, yes it’s destructive, and yet, God always holds a little something back.
Which may be of very little comfort to those Edomites who are not among the remnant and counted among the destroyed and dispossessed.
But for the nation as a whole, even one as wicked as Edom, God never shuts the door entirely. And I think there’s some comfort to be found there. That if God can be merciful and show grace to the wicked, even if only for the remnant – what mercy and grace is there for his faithful?
Now… you may be wondering… Pastor, we read part of the first chapter of Amos and we read part of the last chapter of Amos… what about the 7 chapters in the middle?
Well… remember at the beginning that I said that God isn’t afraid of a little hyperbole from time to time. God occasionally likes to talk a big game. Most of what we didn’t read in Amos is, for lack of a better term, God’s trash-talk. Everything Amos said about Edom he also said about Israel too. And Judah. And Moab. And Damascus and Gaza and Tyre… God especially calls out Israel for its lack of faith and its violence against its neighbors too. It’s a theme that tends to be repeated a lot throughout the Hebrew Bible… in nearly all of the prophets, the histories, the Psalms and the songs… that God calls people to account for the faithlessness and fecklessness. As we go through the rest of the summer and look at more of some of these minor prophets, we’ll see a lot of different words used to say the same things over and over again. The contexts change, the timeframes change, the characters change, but the story remains the same. And we’ll talk a little bit about why that’s important too as we go on.
None of this is to say that God’s Word can’t be trusted – quite the opposite. It is to say that when God promises judgment, judgment is coming. But it has always been God’s way to temper that judgment with mercy. A mercy that we get promises of – bits and pieces of – throughout the Old Testament, that comes bursting forth to take center stage in the New.
It’s a mercy, it’s a grace, it’s a love, that’s been there from the dawn of Creation, and carries down to us today. That has always been God’s way. Amen.
Let us pray together.
Gracious God, we give you thanks for your prophets – for those individuals set aside to tell your story. Who speak truth to power, who give warning to the nations, and who reveal your great and generous spirit in your will towards us. Lord, we are blessed to live under your grace, and we pray that we may be good and faithful stewards of your Word and servants of your Kingdom. In the name of Jesus Christ, we pray. Amen.
I believe in a God who can do all things. I believe in a God who can do great things – bring peace to places of war, bring water to places of thirst, bring health to places of plague… and a God who can do little things – like mend the relationship between two neighbors, see a lost dog home to a loving family, or give a weary nurse a moment of respite in a hectic day.
I believe in a God who answers prayers, great and small. A God who keeps his word and means what he says. And also, a God who is capable even of sometimes speaking in metaphor. Who isn’t afraid of a little hyperbole and some symbolism.
To some extent that’s where I think we have to go when we look at our scripture from the Book of Amos. Now, you’ll notice that we read two parts – one from the near beginning of the book where it talks about the sins of Edom and how God will not relent. That because the nation of Edom pursued his brother with a sword and slaughtered the women of the land, God will send fire on Teman (one of the clans of Edom) and consume the fortresses of Bozrah (the city of Edom’s kings).
And then we pick up at the end of Amos. Where he prophesies that Israel will be restored, that God will rebuild her walls and her ruins and that they will possess the remnant of Edom.
This remnant of Edom… is a testament to God’s temper… both in the anger of God’s temper in that he will reduce Edom to a remnant… but also that God’s anger will be tempered in that Edom will not be wholly destroyed.
Last week we talked about Edom in the prophesy of Obadiah and that God would shame Edom and make it small among the nations – not just small, but that Edom will be covered in shame and destroyed forever.
Here’s the thing…
Amos and Obadiah are saying much the same thing… but they’re probably writing close to 200 years apart. Obadiah is likely to be a contemporary or near-contemporary of Jeremiah, writing at the beginning of the exile. But we think Amos’s words pre-date Obadiah by about 150, 200 years. Everything that Amos is saying now. Every threat of God, every warning of anger, every accusation of Edom raising the sword against its brothers – against Israel… repeats again generations later in Obadiah.
Edom is a repeat offender.
Though descended of the tribes of Isaac, they’ve taken sword against their brothers, the Israelites, the tribes of Jacob, again and again. And so Amos prophesies against them. And Obadiah prophesies against them. Other prophets do too – Joel, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and Isaiah… basically the prophesies of doom and gloom against Edom far outweigh the very little good that the scriptures say about them.
And so God takes them to task. Over and over, again and again, from generation to generation.
With promises and prophecies of complete and total destruction, that God will wipe them from the map and Edom will be no more.
Except that they are still God’s people. The tribes of Esau, the elder sons of Isaac, the scions of Abraham.
And so in God’s accusations and threats and in his judgment against Edom, as we saw in Obadiah and in the first chapter of Amos, we still see a glimmer of mercy, as in the last chapter of Amos. That as Israel is restored and the House of David brought back up, that the remnant of Edom will remain. That God’s vengeance is not total; his judgment is not absolute. That even though Edom has sinned time and time again against their brothers, the tribes of Israel, that even God lets a remnant remain. To give them a second chance. And a third chance. And a fourth chance.
As best as we can tell, it will be 200 years from the time of Amos to the time of Obadiah. And Edom will survive those 200 years, in spite of God’s judgments against it. And from the time of Obadiah onward, Edom will continue on for another 500 years or so as a kingdom in its own right, sometimes free and sometimes as a vassal, until its conquest and assimilation by Alexander the Great in the 2nd century BC.
Which means, I think, that God even at his angriest, in his most wrathful moments, is not afraid to say a lot of things – to prophesy the worst doom and destruction we can imagine. Yet at the same time, when punishment comes, yes it’s terrible, yes it’s destructive, and yet, God always holds a little something back.
Which may be of very little comfort to those Edomites who are not among the remnant and counted among the destroyed and dispossessed.
But for the nation as a whole, even one as wicked as Edom, God never shuts the door entirely. And I think there’s some comfort to be found there. That if God can be merciful and show grace to the wicked, even if only for the remnant – what mercy and grace is there for his faithful?
Now… you may be wondering… Pastor, we read part of the first chapter of Amos and we read part of the last chapter of Amos… what about the 7 chapters in the middle?
Well… remember at the beginning that I said that God isn’t afraid of a little hyperbole from time to time. God occasionally likes to talk a big game. Most of what we didn’t read in Amos is, for lack of a better term, God’s trash-talk. Everything Amos said about Edom he also said about Israel too. And Judah. And Moab. And Damascus and Gaza and Tyre… God especially calls out Israel for its lack of faith and its violence against its neighbors too. It’s a theme that tends to be repeated a lot throughout the Hebrew Bible… in nearly all of the prophets, the histories, the Psalms and the songs… that God calls people to account for the faithlessness and fecklessness. As we go through the rest of the summer and look at more of some of these minor prophets, we’ll see a lot of different words used to say the same things over and over again. The contexts change, the timeframes change, the characters change, but the story remains the same. And we’ll talk a little bit about why that’s important too as we go on.
None of this is to say that God’s Word can’t be trusted – quite the opposite. It is to say that when God promises judgment, judgment is coming. But it has always been God’s way to temper that judgment with mercy. A mercy that we get promises of – bits and pieces of – throughout the Old Testament, that comes bursting forth to take center stage in the New.
It’s a mercy, it’s a grace, it’s a love, that’s been there from the dawn of Creation, and carries down to us today. That has always been God’s way. Amen.
Let us pray together.
Gracious God, we give you thanks for your prophets – for those individuals set aside to tell your story. Who speak truth to power, who give warning to the nations, and who reveal your great and generous spirit in your will towards us. Lord, we are blessed to live under your grace, and we pray that we may be good and faithful stewards of your Word and servants of your Kingdom. In the name of Jesus Christ, we pray. Amen.
