When I was in high school, I worked part-time for a contractor named Dale, who specialized in flipping houses. He would buy the most run-down and dilapidated house in a neighborhood and restore it to its original beauty. He liked to hire a crew of high school students like me to do the grunt work, while he applied his skills in plumbing, plaster, and paint, to renovate the inside and outside of the house until it was completely transformed. Dale would often double his investment and then move on to the next house. Dale loved restoring the ruins!
When I was in college, I spent some summer breaks working at Chestnut Ridge Antiques, where I learned something about the fine arts of antique dealing and furniture restoration. In addition to antique showroom, my boss, Dave, ran a wood-working shop where he restored antique furniture. His wife, Terry, operated a furniture reupholstery shop. They were a dynamic combination of restoration! When I went to work every morning, I never knew if I was going to be moving old pianos down two flights of stairs, refinishing a mahogany coffee table, or re-webbing and springing a Victorian sofa. Although the work was tedious, there was something satisfying about seeing a piece of antique furniture restored to its original form and beauty. Dave and Terry loved restoring the ruins!
Debbie worked as the seamstress at Chestnut Ridge Antiques; she was an absolute whiz with a sewing machine. One day during our lunch break, Debbie noticed the holes in the knees and crotch of my blue jeans. She asked me if I wanted her to patch the wholes. She took five pairs of my tattered and torn jeans and patched the wholes with scraps of an old flannel shirt. Those jeans lasted for years, and they established a new fashion trend in the process. All of my friends started taking their jeans to Debbie to get those cool “flannel patches.” Debbie just loved restoring the ruins!
Have you ever been a part of restoring the ruins? Whether it was an article of clothing, a piece of furniture, or a whole house, there is great satisfaction associated with restoring something to its original beauty. It is gratifying to fix a piece of broken machinery and make it functional again. It is rewarding to diagnose a disease and help a human body heal and become healthy again! Furthermore, it’s heartwarming to hear stories about broken marriages finding forgiveness and reconciliation! It is amazing to witness lives that has been shattered by sin experience redemption through Jesus Christ! And wouldn’t it be absolutely amazing to be a part of a nation that has been restored after being ravaged by years of political, economic, social, and racial conflict?
Thankfully for us, God is in the restoration business! Ever since sin entered the world through the fall of our first ancestors in the Garden of Eden, God has embarked upon a mission to restore his creation to its original form and beauty. Throughout the Bible, we can read about God’s master plan to restore the ruins!
In the last final section of the Book of Amos, we catch a glorious glimpse of God’s plan to restore our broken world to its original beauty! After nine chapters of mostly bad news about God’s impending judgment on the Northern King of Israel, Amos now gives us five verses of good news about God’s future restoration of Israel and the whole world.
Unfortunately, since Israel refused to humble themselves before the Lord and repent from their sins, God did sent judgment on his people in the forms of earthquake and exile. But thankfully, this wasn’t God’s final word for his people. As he mentioned back in verse 8, he would not “utterly destroy the house of Jacob.” Even though he had the power and prerogative to whitewash Israel from the annals of human history, he would once again show the extent of his compassion and grace. After a period of exile, he would restore the remnant to the Promised Land and bless them with abundance. Let’s take a look at God’s beautiful promise of restoring the ruins.
Restoring Israel’s Ruins(11-15)
In this final prophecy, the Lord, through Amos, promises restoration to Israel in five key categories.
1.) Political Restoration(11)
In verse 11, God promises political restoration. Since the death of King David, Israel had been in political turmoil. After David died, his son Solomon, became king. Due to his increasing idolatry and polygamy, he slowly lost control of the kingdom. When Solomon died, the nation descended into a brief civil war and eventually divided into the northern kingdom of Israel and the southern kingdom of Judah. These political tensions continued for hundreds of years, through the days of Amos’ preaching.
Throughout the generations, God’s people longed for the glory days of the united kingdom under King David. It would only be after the northern kingdom is conquered by Assyria in 722 B.C. and the southern kingdom is conquered by Babylon in 586 B.C. that Israel would be unified again. After these periods of exile, God promises to bring the captives back to the land and restore the nation to the period of peace and prosperity they enjoyed back in the good old day when David was king. He employs architectural language to describe the rebuilding of the Davidic dynasty—it will be repaired, raised up, and rebuilt. God’s promise of political restoration offered Israel hope in the midst of exile.
2.) Geographical Restoration(12a)
The second promise involves geographical restoration. In verse 12, Amos uses language reminiscent of the promises to Abraham about possessing the Promised Land. Israel was about to lose their land again because of their sin and disobedience to God. But after the exile, God promises to restore them to the land that was inhabited by their enemies—even their ancient fraternal foe, Edom, who sought their destruction.
3.) Ethnic Restoration(12b)
The third promise is ethnic restoration and it flows directly from the promise of geographical restoration. In the second clause of verse 12, God promises that Israel will possess “all the nations who are called by my name.” This is a reference to the future restoration of Jews and Gentiles who would no longer be separated by ethnic divisions but would find common ground through Jesus Christ. In the Book of Acts (15:16-17) in the New Testament, James, Jesus’ brother and pastor of the church in Jerusalem, quoted this verse from Amos to establish the fact that the Gentiles didn’t have to become Jews to become Christians—that God’s grace did not depend on ethnic identity.
4.) Agricultural Restoration(13, 14b)
The fourth promise is agricultural restoration. Verses 13-14 are some of the most beautiful words in the whole book, where God declares that the days are coming “when the plowman shall overtake the reaper and the treader of grapes him who sows the seed; the mountains shall drip sweet wine and the hills will shall flow with it.” This is accompanied by the line “they shall plant their vineyards and drink their wine, and they shall make gardens and eat their fruit.”
When foodies and wine connoisseurs read these verses, they start dreaming about a big bowl of Antipasto Salad and a tall glass of Chianti. They express their jubilation by singing that old UB40 song:
Red, red wine, you make me feel so fine
You keep me rockin’ all of the time.
Red red wine, you make me feel so grand
I feel a million dollars when you’re in my hand
But before you winos get too excited about these verses, I hope you realize that Amos is using hyperbolic language to express the agricultural abundance. The mountains won’t literally drip with sweet wine; but the harvest will be so abundant that the plowman would overtake the reaper and the grape treader would overtake the sower, in a cycle of perpetual productivity.
5.) Architectural Restoration(14a)
The fifth promise is for architectural restoration. When the Assyrians conquered Israel in 722B.C., they reduced the cities to heaps of rubble and a host of ruins. But when the period of exile was over, the citied of Israel would undergo and architectural restoration. God would bless his people with the resources and ingenuity to rebuild the palaces, temples, and city walls that were destroyed by the earthquake and exile.
These promises were partially fulfilled hundreds of years after Amos’ prophecy. The history goes like this: The Assyrians conquered Israel, then the Babylonians conquered the Assyrians, then the Persians conquered the Babylonians, and then the Persians released the Israelites from exile and allowed them to return to their homeland. Then the Israelites embarked upon the long process of rebuilding their nation; they rebuilt the
These promises were partially fulfilled again when Jesus came to earth. This is where the promise of political and ethnic restoration was realized more fully. Jesus descended from the line of King David and he preached a gospel where both Jews and Gentiles could enter the Kingdom of God.
When we hear Amos proclaiming God’s promise of restoring the ruins of Israel, we should feel overwhelmed by God’s grace and mercy for us today. We, like Israel, have sinned against God in many ways and on many occasions. We have often ignored his commandments and failed to be faithful to him. We have all worshiped at the altars of personal idols—success and security, popularity and prosperity, pleasure and personal happiness! And like Israel, we deserve God’s judgment and wrath!
But thanks be to God for fulfilling Amos’ prophecy by sending a Savior from the line of David to die on the cross and pay the ultimate penalty for our sin! Thanks be to God for sending his one and only son Jesus Christ to restore the ruins of our lives by reconciling our broken relationship with our Heavenly Father! Thanks be to God for raising Jesus from the dead and inaugurating the great work of restoring the ruins of our cursed world!
From the Garden to the City
Yes, Amos’ prophecy of restoration was partially fulfilled when the exiles returned to the Promised Land, and it was further fulfilled when Jesus came to earth and ascended the throne of his father David. But Amos’ prophecy will ultimately be fulfilled when Jesus comes back in all of his glory. One of these days he will return to earth, and after he distributes final judgment on those who have rejected him, he will restore the ruins by recreating the heavens and earth. God loves restoring the ruins!
Its going to be a beautiful place! There will be ultimate political restoration! Republican and Democrats and Communists and Capitalists will all get along with one another and see eye to eye. I’m just kidding—there won’t be any need for politicians or economists in the new creation. There won’t be any Fox News or CNN, no fake news or alternative facts, no media bias or political spin, no back-door deals or obstruction of justice! It will just be King Jesus sitting on his throne! There won’t be any political problems to solve! Can you even imagine? God loves restoring the ruins!
There will also be geographical restoration! Humanity began in the Garden of Eden and it will end in the City of God. Everything that was lost will be regained! In Amos 9:15, God says, “I will plant them on their land, and they shall never again be uprooted out of the land that I have given them…” In the new creation, there will be no serpents or sin, no border walls or property disputes, no immigration issues or refugee crises! We will all live together in the true Promised Land! God loves restoring the ruins!
There will be ethnic restoration! People from every tongue, tribe, and nation will be in the new creation together! There will be no separation between Jews and Gentiles, no fights between blacks and whites, no ethnic prejudice, no racial profiling, and no genocide! God loves restoring the ruins!
There will be agricultural restoration! The river that runs through the new creation will yield its fruit and there will be an abundance of food for everyone! Milk prices will never drop in the land that flows with milk and honey! God loves restoring the ruins!
And there will even be architectural restoration! Nothing will wear out, break down, or fall apart in the new creation. Our ramshackle houses will be replaced by a mansion on the hill and our frost heaved pot-holed roads will be repaved with gold! God loves restoring the ruins!