HoHum:
Watermelon, peaches, grapes, cantaloupes, homegrown tomatoes. Summer fruit right off field!
One time working on a farm, far away from water, just break open a watermelon... so good!
Got a sandwich from Subway, leave off tomatoes, put homegrown on sandwich, star of meal!
WBTU:
Residents of ancient Israel looked forward to summer fruit, too. It was a time of joy and feasting. In Judah they would have a religious festival of the harvest, kind of like our Thanksgiving in October where they would bring some of the produce of fields to temple.
Not sure where Amos is at this point in his ministry. In northern Israel at this time, they also would have a religious festival of the harvest at Bethel, Dan and maybe even Samaria. These religious festivals would mimic much of what Judah did in the south. However, in the north there would be the calf idols set up by the kings of Israel at these religious centers.
At this time of the year the Lord gives a vision to Amos of a basket of ripe, summer fruit. Wherever he is, Amos comes on the scene and gives some words of judgment to the chosen people. His words would not be well accepted at such a time and place. This religious festival was to give thanks to God for his bounty and to pray that God would bless with another good crop in the coming year. Instead, Amos talks about dead bodies and how God will spare them no longer because of their sins focusing here on corrupt business practices.
Amos was a man who know something about ripening summer fruit. Amos 7:14: Amos answered Amaziah, "I was neither a prophet nor a prophet's son, but I was a shepherd, and I also took care of sycamore-fig trees.”
A more correct translation might be bruiser of sycamore fruit. It was believed in the East that it would never ripen except it was a little bruised, so that some person was employed with an iron comb to scratch and wound the skin. Unwounded, the fruit, even when ripe was too bitter to be eaten; but after it had been wounded, it ripened rapidly, and became sweet.
Summer fruit will not keep, thrown out many a rotten tomato, it must be eaten at once. Amos sees here that God’s purposes are now ripe with regard to His people Israel, and that the nation has become ripe in its sin- so ripe that it must be destroyed.
Thesis: We see from this that there is a ripeness in the purposes of God, a ripeness for a nation, a ripeness for each Christian, and a ripeness for the ungodly.
For instances:
Ripeness in the purposes (timing) of God
In the coming of Jesus Christ as the Messiah. Galatians 4:4: But when the time had fully come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under law. Other translations, the right time
In the second coming it will be the same way. 2 Peter 3:7-9: By the same word the present heavens and earth are reserved for fire, being kept for the day of judgment and destruction of ungodly men. But do not forget this one thing, dear friends: With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day. The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.
We might wonder why hasn’t this or that happened, why did this or that bad thing happen. Our time is not the Lord’s time.
Why isn’t this happening? Ecclesiastes 3:1, 11: There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under heaven: He has made everything beautiful in its time.
Why did this bad thing happen? I don’t know but I hold onto the promise in Romans 8:28: And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.
Cheer up, Christian! Things are not left to chance: no blind fate rules the world. God has purposes, and those purposes will be fulfilled in His way and in His time.
Ripeness for a nation
There is a need when a nation has become ripe in sin that it should be given up to destruction. There are such things as national sins, and there are consequently such things as national punishments. In looking back upon history of the world, believers in God with an interest in history confess that there have been such things as national judgments sent from hand of God.
God said that the Israelites would drive out the Amorites and Canaanites but not in Abraham’s time. Why? Genesis 15:16: Because sin of the Amorites has not yet reached its full measure.
God punished the northern nation of Israel through the Assyrians. The Assyrians destroyed them as a nation. Later on, the Lord punished the Assyrians, Assyria and Ninevah is no more.
God punished the nation of Judah through the Babylonians. Took them into captivity and destroyed Jerusalem and the temple. Later on, the Lord punished Babylon, it’s no more.
Even the greatest and longest lasting empire, Rome, finally was punished and there is no more Roman empire. Partly because they persecuted the church. Other reasons for the fall of the Roman Empire: First: Rapid increase of divorce, with the undermining of the sanctity of the home, which is the basis of society. Second: Higher and higher taxes; the spending of money for bread and celebrations. Third: The mad craze for pleasure, sports becoming every year more exciting and more brutal. Fourth: The building of gigantic armaments, when the real enemy was within; the decadence of the people.
The US is not exempt from this. We have been around for 236 years, not much but the time of our ripeness might be around the corner.
Proverbs 14:34: Righteousness exalts a nation, but sin is a disgrace to any people.
Psalm 9:17 (KJV): The wicked shall be turned into hell, and all the nations that forget God.
Ripeness for each Christian
We have been dwelling on the negative aspects of this vision of the basket of ripe, summer fruit and rightfully so, that is the way Amos used it. Let’s think about it in more positive way.
When we come to Christ, in one sense we are ready for heaven, but in another sense we are not. If we were ready for heaven right after coming out of the baptistry, God would take us home. No, a new Christian is like a bud. He/ She needs time to develop and ripen.
Ephesians 4:15: Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will in all things grow up into him who is the Head, that is, Christ. Using the same kind of image of growing, maturing, ripening
Christians are each day ripening by the care of God, the great Vinedresser who looks for fruit from men. James 1:2-4: Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.
How are we ripened? By reading God’s word, prayers, Communion, spiritual disciplines.
In what ways should we be ripened or sweetened?
In knowledge- Colossians 1:10: And we pray this in order that you may live a life worthy of the Lord and may please him in every way: bearing fruit in every good work, growing in the knowledge of God.
In experience- 1 Peter 2:2-3: Like newborn babies, crave pure spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow up in your salvation, now that you have tasted that the Lord is good.
In spirituality- 2 Peter 3:18: grow in grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
All of these fruits should get sweeter and more noticeable as the years go by. Galatians 5:22: But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.
All of these things are making us ready for the time when our Lord shall come and gather us into His basket, like apples of gold. 1 Peter 1:6-7: for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. These have come so that your faith--of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire--may be proved genuine and may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed.
Ripeness for the ungodly
Without Jesus Christ, we are unforgiven but we are also sick, depraved, spiritually dead, decaying. Talk about ripe. Romans 7:18: I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. New Living Translation says here “I know I am rotten through and through so far as my old sinful nature is concerned.” Without Christ that is all they have.
Ripening from within. Ripening in sin. The depravity of their hearts is getting worse by the hour. The fermentation of their depravity is preparing them for destruction. Revelation 14:18-19 uses the same language: Still another angel, who had charge of the fire, came from the altar and called in a loud voice to him who had the sharp sickle, "Take your sharp sickle and gather the clusters of grapes from the earth's vine, because its grapes are ripe." The angel swung his sickle on the earth, gathered its grapes and threw them into the great winepress of God's wrath.
There are some even in our culture who do just the opposite of what Amos did when he went around bruising the fruit to make it sweet. They are bruising people and leading them into more sin not to make sweet fruit but to make fruit that is bitter and rotten. Romans 1:32: Although they know God's righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practice them.
They are really ripening for hell. I don’t need Jesus Christ. I am a good person. No, without Christ no one is good, not even one.
Galatians 6:7-8: Do not be deceived: God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows. The one who sows to please his sinful nature, from that nature will reap destruction; the one who sows to please the Spirit, from the Spirit will reap eternal life.
