Amos 4:1-13 Click here for Bible Verses
Hi GAMErs,
Amos 4:1 (NIV)
1 Hear this word, you cows of Bashan on Mount Samaria, you women who oppress the poor and crush the needy and say to your husbands, “Bring us some drinks!”
On verses 1-3: While Israel was experiencing great economic prosperity during this time, there was a wide discrepancy between the rich and the poor in Israel. Here Amos accuses the rich, upper class women, and indirectly their husbands, of oppressing the poor and taking advantage of the needy in order to satisfy their expensive tastes. Playing off the fact that Samaria, Israel’s capital city, had a lot of lush fields and fattened cattle, Amos calls these women “cows of Bashan” (v1). This is followed by a promise from God that these upper class women would be cast out of their own city one day, like fish being taken away on hooks (v2-3).
What can we learn from this? It angers God when the rich take advantage of the poor, or when those who have more materially show no concern for those who have less. God has no issues with people having wealth, but He watches what we do with our wealth. Justice is a big theme in the book of Amos.
Amos 4:4-5 (NIV)
4 “Go to Bethel and sin; go to Gilgal and sin yet more. Bring your sacrifices every morning, your tithes every three years.
5 Burn leavened bread as a thank offering and brag about your freewill offerings– boast about them, you Israelites, for this is what you love to do,” declares the Sovereign LORD.
On verses 4-5: The rich and comfortable in Israel would carry on sinful lifestyles while still bringing religious sacrifices regularly. Unremorseful and unrepentant, they would boast about how devout they were. Yet they completely missed the point of what worship is.
What can we learn from this? The kind of worship God desires from us is not just a few songs on a Sunday, a volunteer hour set aside to serve others, or a single money offering, while the rest of the week is ours to do whatever we want. God desires from us a lifestyle of worship, where we treat every day, every moment, and everything we do as an opportunity to worship God. Worship was always meant to be an all-day, every day activity.
Amos 4:8 (NIV)
8 People staggered from town to town for water but did not get enough to drink, yet you have not returned to me,” declares the LORD.
On verses 6-13: God allowed the people of Israel to experience all sorts of difficulties – hunger and famine (v6), drought (v7-8), plagues (v9-10), fires (v11) – all in hope that those difficulties would drive the people back to God. But over and over in these verses, God laments that “you have not returned to me”. Since God could not get the people’s attention through temporary trials, the consequence is that one day those people will be rejected completely (v12-13).
What can we learn from this? One reason God allows trials in our lives is so that we would humbly realize that we are not God and that we need Him. So when you go through a painful time, let that painful time drive you to your knees. In your pain, don’t run away from God; run to Him. In those tough times, thank God that at least this painful time led you back to Him.
Heavenly Father, I pray that my worship of You would be less and less boxed in. May I not see worship as only the first or last few minutes of the day, the few songs I sing at church, or a single sacrifice that I make. More and more may I see worship as my lifestyle and treat each moment as a moment to worship You. In Jesus’ name, AMEN!
