Amos 9:11–13: “On that day I will raise up / The tabernacle of David, which has fallen down, / And repair its damages; / I will raise up its ruins, / And rebuild it as in the days of old; / That they may possess the remnant of Edom, / And all the Gentiles who are called by My name,” / Says the LORD who does this thing. / “Behold, the days are coming,” says the LORD, / “When the plowman shall overtake the reaper, / And the treader of grapes him who sows seed; / The mountains shall drip with sweet wine, / And all the hills shall flow with it.”

November 18th, 2021 by Pastor Ed in devotional

In Acts 15, the Apostles used this passage to show that the Gentiles have always been a part of God’s redemption plan. In the last days, when Jesus Christ the Messiah, returns to rule in His millennial kingdom, God will “raise up” and “repair” this tabernacle on earth. His personal reign over all the nations of the earth from Jerusalem will be a time of extraordinary blessings not experienced by humanity since the Garden of Eden. The “plowman shall overtake the reaper,” gives a picture of just how prosperous and fruitful that time will be, harvests will be enormous and the seasons of planting and reaping will overlap.

G. K. Chesterton wrote of the struggles of humanity to better itself as actually an attempt to experience this very thing. He wrote:

This round road I am treading is an untrodden path. I do believe in breaking out; I am a revolutionist. But don’t you see that all these real leaps and destructions and escapes are only attempts to get back to Eden—to something we have had, to something we at least have heard of?

What an interesting way of looking at the return of Jesus Christ to reign on earth—going back to Eden. Scripture only gives us a few glimpses of what His Kingdom will be like here on earth, but even that time will have its problems. It will not be until the arrival of the New Jerusalem and the new earth, that pain and sorrow will finally be vanquished. Until then, we have the great privilege of being “ambassadors for Christ,” faithfully representing Him to a dying world.

“LORD, please cleanse us from our sins and use us to further Your Kingdom this day, in Jesus’ name.”