Totally Lacking #8

 

Read Amos 8

Background: In chapter 7 we looked at the first three of five visions God gave Amos concerning His judgment on Israel.  The first two were averted because of Amos crying out to God in repentance on behalf of the nation, but the third was not. This chapter gives the fourth vision: The basket of summer fruit. Like summer fruit, Israel was ripe - overly ripe for harvest. Her sins were so complete she was close to rotting on the vine.  Their lack of concern for the poor, dishonesty, and injustice were becoming like the Nile River at flood season: rising up and wiping everything out. Judgment would come that would replace their constant merriment into constant misery.

Key Verses: 11 “Behold, the days are coming,” declares the Lord God,
    “when I will send a famine on the land—
not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water,
    but of hearing the words of the Lord.
12 They shall wander from sea to sea,
    and from north to east;
they shall run to and fro, to seek the word of the Lord,
    but they shall not find it.
13 “In that day the lovely virgins and the young men
    shall faint for thirst.
14 Those who swear by the Guilt of Samaria,
    and say, ‘As your god lives, O Dan,’
and, ‘As the Way of Beersheba lives,’
    they shall fall, and never rise again.”

Thoughts: Their judgment would be more than physical: they would have a spiritual famine. The whole religious system of the Northern Kingdom of Israel would collapse to never be restored. Wherever they would go, they would never find fulfillment.  Their only hope would be to return to the God of Judah, the true God of Jacob, Isaac, and Abraham.