Amos 7-9 and Obadiah

AMOS
7:1-9:15  -  ‘That’s enough, prophet! Go back to Judah and do your preaching there... Don’t prophesy here at Bethel any more’ (7:12-13). Amos was a faithful preacher of God’s Word - but his hearers wanted to get rid of him! This was the beginning of a time of great darkness: ‘The days are coming when I will send a famine through the land - not a famine of food or a thirst for water, but a famine of hearing the words of the Lord. Men will stagger from sea to sea and wander from north to east, searching for the Word of the Lord, but they will not find it’ (8:11-12). There were dark times ahead - but God was looking beyond them to a brighter future: ‘I will restore the fortunes of My people Israel’ (9:14). ‘Restore us again, O God of our salvation...’ (Psalm 85:4-7).

OBADIAH
‘The Kingdom will be the Lord’s’ (21). When God’s Kingdom comes, there will be both salvation - ‘The house of Jacob will possess its inheritance’ - and judgment - ‘There will be no survivors from the house of Esau’ (17-18). ‘Not by works but by Him who calls’ - This is the great contrast between ‘Jacob’ and ‘Esau’. We have not been saved ‘because of any good deeds that we have done’. We have been saved ‘by grace’. We can never be saved ‘by works’. We can never receive His grace ‘by works’. We receive His grace ‘by faith’. We look away from ourselves to the Lord and say, ‘He saved us’. ‘It is by grace that you have been saved through faith... not by works, so that no-one can boast’ (Romans 9:10-13, 30-32; 11:6; Titus 3:4-7; Ephesians 2:8-9).