Amos 8:1-3
In the fourth vision Ams sees a basket of ripe fruit. There's a play on words; the 'ripe fruit' is close to the word 'end' in the original. The ripe fruit won't last much longer and neither would the people. The end had come. God would no longer 'pass by' as he had done.
The once joyous and celabratory songs of the temple had become noise to God (see Amos 5:23). Now those songs would become wailing; loud cries of sorrow and pain. Just like the fruit that had gone bad, so would the people who had gone bad, be thrown out.
Amos 8:4-6
Amos told these people to listen up; it was the people characterized as taking advantage of the needy and poor. They were dishonest in trade. They made the ephah (dry measure) small and made the shekel large. They would go so far as buying as buying a person with their silver and someone who was needy for a pair of sandals. These are cold hearted and greedy individuals serving themselves with no regard for the people, the land or God. They even sold the bad wheat to them. This was wheat full of impurities and chaff; the poor was forced to buy this and pay full price.
Amos 8:7-8
The Lord swears an oath; an oath was sworn by one greater than your self. The Lord can only swear by Him self since there is none greater. He is the pride of Jacob. They had forgotten God and assumed their sins were forgotten. Sin cannot be forgotten unless it is forgiven. And it can only be forgiven by God in His prescribed way. This should have been a great source of hope and security to Jacob, but they had parted from this truth and sought life on their terms. But this was Israel, God's people and God's land of God's promise. To part of the truths should cause fear and trembling; to think God remembered their sins should cause mourning.
Do you mourn over your sin?
But they did not mourn over their sin. They thought a parting from God equaled a parting from judgment. God assured them that is not so. Amos pictures the land heaving and swelling like a river as the Lord deals with them in judgment.
What is your response to sin and the truths of the Lord?
Amos 8:9-10
Amos attemps to make these folks understand what this judgment will be like. It may be that Amos is also pointing toward a day yet to come, the final day of the Lord. The mourning will be painful, deep and relentless as the mourning for an only son. The feasts that were once a source of joy would be brought to mourning. Songs of joy would become funeral songs. Sackcloth and baldness were signs of mourning; this would be brought to every head.
Did this get their attention? Did it elicit a response? How do you respond?
Amos 8:11-14
To think that a famine was coming would scare most people. It might get a response because they couldn't imagine anything worse than a famine of food in the land. But their was something worse; it was to voluntarily starve yourself from the word of God. Their flesh would have bread and water but their spirit would dry up because they had not heard from the Lord.
God won't force feed us. His word will come to us; its not enough to just hold it in our hands or listen to its presentation or talk about it superficially, but we must receive it. We need to confront God's word as food for our very soul. That food nourishes and strengthens us spiritually. This feeding then brings about change; we are grown in righteousness and holiness.
13 For this reason we also thank God without ceasing, because when you received the word of God which you heard from us, you welcomed it not as the word of men, but as it is in truth, the word of God, which also effectively works in you who believe. (1 Thess 2:13)
We rarely miss a meal, but when we do we know it and are ready to feast at the next one. Yet, we can miss feeding on God's word and never hear that call from our spirit crying out to be fed. We cover and drowned out the hunger pangs of our spirit with life and the pursuit of things that please our flesh while our spirit withers away from hunger.
In time we become very adept at not hearing God's word. Yet, there is a wandering and a searching for something to cover and drowned out. From sea to sea and coast to coast mankind searches for the meaning of their lives; who am I, where did I come from and where am I going when this is over.
The people of the northern kingdom would run to and fro wanting to hear from God but they wouldn't find him. Why? They had long ago parted from God's word; they had ignored the prophets and asked them to go home. They had formed a god of their own understanding and found their own way to worship that god. The problem was that their god and their worship was not toward the God of Israel. Their traditions and ways drowned out and covered God's word and the starvation process was started.
"Every commandment which I command you today you must be careful to observe, that you may live and multiply, and go in and possess the land of which the Lord swore to your fathers. 2 And you shall remember that the Lord your God led you all the way these forty years in the wilderness, to humble you and test you, to know what was in your heart, whether you would keep His commandments or not. 3 So He humbled you, allowed you to hunger, and fed you with manna which you did not know nor did your fathers know, that He might make you know that man shall not live by bread alone; but man lives by every word that proceeds from the mouth of the Lord. (Deuteronomy 8:1-3)
Even the youngest and the strongest among them would grow faint apart from God. In their mind, they thought God would always be there to fall back on. They pursued life on their terms; allowing their sinful and rebellious nature to pull them away from God. The 'sin of Samaria' was probably a play on words; the original word for sin and Asherah were very close. The sin of Samaria may be the Asherah; the idol worship that was going on. They went to Dan and worshiped a golden calf and declared it to be representative of the God of Israel. They made pilgrmages to Beersheba and swore oaths there. They found comfort in Samaria, Dan and Beersheba; but these things simply replaced God's word in their life.
What is your response? Are you feeding on God's word or are there things in the way? Do we never have time? Or make excuses and turn on the TV? Do you confront God's word and receive it into your life inviting the change that it brings?
©2016 Doug Ford
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