Amos 8:1-14 Click here for Bible Verses
Hi GAMErs,
Today’s passage is Amos 8:1-14. Let’s go!
Amos 8:1-3 (NIV)
1 This is what the Sovereign LORD showed me: a basket of ripe fruit.
2 “What do you see, Amos?” he asked. “A basket of ripe fruit,” I answered. Then the LORD said to me, “The time is ripe for my people Israel; I will spare them no longer.
3 “In that day,” declares the Sovereign LORD, “the songs in the temple will turn to wailing. Many, many bodies–flung everywhere! Silence!”
On verses 1-3: Amos sees a vision of a ripe fruit basket signifying that the time is ripe for God to judge the nation of Israel. Verse 3 is, according to Amos, what the wrath of God against sin sounds like. Although verse 3 reads like a line that could be spoken by a villain in a Marvel comic book, remember who the real bad guys are in this story: it’s us, the ones who turned our backs on God despite all the ways He has been kind, patient and merciful toward us.
What can we learn from this? Were it not for Jesus who stood in the gap and paid the price on our behalf, we would be subject to God’s unbridled wrath against sin. When it comes to how God deals with us, Jesus changes everything.
Amos 8:4-14 (NIV)
4 Hear this, you who trample the needy and do away with the poor of the land,
5 saying, “When will the New Moon be over that we may sell grain, and the Sabbath be ended that we may market wheat?”– skimping the measure, boosting the price and cheating with dishonest scales,
6 buying the poor with silver and the needy for a pair of sandals, selling even the sweepings with the wheat.
7 The LORD has sworn by the Pride of Jacob: “I will never forget anything they have done.
8 “Will not the land tremble for this, and all who live in it mourn? The whole land will rise like the Nile; it will be stirred up and then sink like the river of Egypt.
9 “In that day,” declares the Sovereign LORD, “I will make the sun go down at noon and darken the earth in broad daylight.
10 I will turn your religious feasts into mourning and all your singing into weeping. I will make all of you wear sackcloth and shave your heads. I will make that time like mourning for an only son and the end of it like a bitter day.
12 Men will stagger from sea to sea and wander from north to east, searching for the word of the LORD, but they will not find it.
13 “In that day “the lovely young women and strong young men will faint because of thirst.
14 They who swear by the shame of Samaria, or say, ‘As surely as your god lives, O Dan,’ or, ‘As surely as the god of Beersheba lives’– they will fall, never to rise again.”
On verses 4-14: In response to the way some Israelites have taken advantage of the poor and needy (v4-6), God promises never to forget what they have done (v7) and to turn their feasting into mourning (v8-10). God also declares that a time will come when God will send a famine not of physical food but a famine of hearing the word of the Lord (v11-12). This most severe famine would result in young people losing their vigor (v13) and idol worshipers falling to their doom (v14). The fact that a famine of hearing God’s Word affects even idol worshipers suggests to me that in His mercy He is patiently holding up idol worshippers with His Word, waiting for them to come to the realization that it is He who holds them up, but once He takes His Word away, they are doomed.
What can we learn from this? When we do not treasure or obey God’s Word, when we worship things other than God, we eventually lose God’s Word; that is, God’s Word becomes out of sight and out of reach for us, as if it didn’t exist at all, such that for practical purposes we become like starving unbelievers again – spiritually restless, weary and lost. Without God’s Word we lose our vitality, beauty and strength (v13). Jesus is right: man shall not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of God (Matthew 4:4). Since God’s Word is by far our most important food and the source of our vigor, beauty and strength, let’s treasure God’s Word more than anything else.
Heavenly Father, thank You for Your Word, without which I am dead and lost. Thank You that Your Word is my most important food and the source of my strength. May I cling to and treasure Your Word today and every day. In Jesus’ name, AMEN!
