August 30, Amos 4
"I gave you cleanness of teeth in all your cities, and lack of bread in all your places, yet you did not return to me," declares the LORD.
- Amos 4:6
How did it happen? She was wealthy and powerful. She grew her wealth by mistreating poor people. She lived a life of indulgence, driven by the pursuit of pleasure. And then the day came when the invaders stripped her of her finery, put a hook through her nose and led her in naked shame out of the city through the holes they had punched in the city's walls. Her life of indulgence and idleness was over, and she was just another helpless and humbled slave. She had been the one giving orders, treating her own husband like her personal servant. But now she would be the servant, not of a loving husband, but of a cruel master. How did it happen?
God loved the Israelites, but he hated what they were doing. So he gave them clean teeth. He was not talking about dental hygiene, but famine. When they wouldn’t listen to the prophet, he sent drought, blight, disease and death to discipline them. After each calamity, the result was the same. They refused to repent, even when they suffered for doing wrong. Like the fivefold chorus of a sad song, God told them, "Yet you did not return to me." Why wouldn't they listen to God?
God loved these people. He had been patient with them for a long time. But when they ignored the warnings and were unmoved by the severe discipline, he let them go their way. Paul was talking about the Gentiles who did not know God when he said God let them go. But it was true of these Jews, too. He told them to go on to their idol temples and worship the idols with all their might. And he explained why they wouldn’t come to him, and why he let them go: "for so you love to do, O people of Israel." Idols and all the evils associated with them had stolen their hearts.
God swore by his own holiness that the day of their disaster was coming. He warned them to prepare for judgment. They had made and called things their god that were not gods at all. So the true and living God told them, "Prepare to meet your God, O Israel." Almighty, all-knowing God who created and operated the universe by his power was coming to judge and punish them for their disobedience to God's laws and their rejection of his love.
What is the point of such a sad, tragic story being in our Bibles? Paul answered that. He said, "Now these things took place as examples for us, that we might not desire evil as they did." We are susceptible to the same temptations that led Israel away from God and finally destroyed them. We still live in a fallen material world that tempts us to love something or someone more than God. We still face temptation to indulge in immorality and covetousness in all their forms. God gave us the sad example of the Israelites' fall to warn us about the danger of our own fall.
If we ignore the stern warning we should get from Israel's example, we are not much different from them, are we? God is still God and he still wants to bless us and not destroy us. God is still God and he means what he says. It is in our own best interest to never persist in hardheaded, hardhearted disobedience. We never want to hear God say, "Yet you did not return to me. Therefore...." The “therefore” that follows turning away from God and refusing to return to him is too terrible to contemplate. Let’s resolve to stay close to God, and always run back to him when we realize we’ve wandered away.
Copyright © 2024 by Michael B. McElroy. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Today in God's Word—August 2024
East Tallassee Church of Christ
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