Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord Yahweh, 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 Yahweh.

There is no judgment worse than this. If God sends sickness and famine, one can endure it through remembering God's promises. Those of you who have sat with Phil and Karen, reading the Psalms to them know exactly what I mean. Man shall not live by bread alone, but every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.

I can endure suffering and hunger. But without the Word of the Lord, I will perish.

Amos has concluded his covenant lawsuit. God has sworn to raise up a nation to destroy Israel, leaving only a remnant in the land. Now in Amos 7-8 God gives the prophet four visions of the coming judgment.

Amos 7:1-3: First, Amos sees the Lord GOD forming locusts which will devour the entire land. Amos rightly understands the meaning: the entire destruction of Israel. If the locusts devour everything after the king's mowings, then there will be no food for the people, and the nation will starve to death. So he cries out, "O Lord Yahweh, please forgive! How can Jacob stand? He is so small!" And Yahweh hears the cry of the prophet, and relented: "It shall not be." God will not send a famine that brings physical death. But as he says at the end of the visions, he will bring a famine of hearing the word of the Lord.

Amos 7:4-6: Likewise, in the second vision, Amos sees the Lord Yahweh calling for a judgment by fire, which devours the great deep and was eating up the land. Again, Amos understands the point: the final judgment of the earth and the seas. And he cries out, "O Lord Yahweh, please cease! How can Jacob stand? He is so small!" And again Yahweh relents: "This also shall not be."

What is the point of these two visions? God is showing Israel what he deserves. Your sin deserves the total and complete wrath of God. The fire of hell is the just reward for Israel's sin--and for yours. If God had brought a judgment of fire on the earth in Israel's day, it would have been the end of the human race. Do you remember what John said about Jesus? "He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire. His winnowing fork is in his hand, to clear his threshing floor and to gather the wheat into his barn, but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire" (Luke 3:16-17). And then Jesus referred to his own death in similar words: "I came to cast fire on the earth, and would that it were already kindled. I have a baptism to be baptized with, and how great is my distress until it is accomplished" (Luke 12:49-50). If God had sent a judgment by fire in Amos's day, it would have destroyed all humanity. But God sent that judgment by fire upon Jesus. He alone could stand under that judgment, because he alone was a true and righteous man; he alone was true man and true God.

But in Amos's day, God relented. He promised that he would not send that final judgment yet.

Instead, Amos 7:7-9: In the latter two visions, God asks the prophet, "Amos, what do you see?" This is to draw attention to the symbol in the vision. Here it is a plumb line. After the vision of locusts, and the vision of fire, this rather ordinary object might have seemed somewhat strange. A plumb line was used to make a straight wall (like our modern level). God holds a plumb line in his hand as he stands next to a straight wall. The plumb line is a reference to the law of God. This is what Israel should have been. Israel should have been a straight wall, built with the law of God. Now God declares that he is setting his plumb line in the midst of his people. He is going to judge them according to the standard of his law. If they are crooked and do not measure up to his standard. He is not going to pass them by. In other words, he is not going to ignore their sins. He will bring judgment. "The high places of Isaac shall be made desolate, and the sanctuaries of Israel shall be laid waste, and I will rise against the house of Jeroboam with the sword."

Until now, Amaziah, the priest of Bethel, has been listening with contempt. But he hasn't been able to do anything, because Amos has been proclaiming generalities. But upon hearing these words, he finally has grounds for accusing Amos of conspiracy against the king, Jeroboam II. Quickly he sent word to Jeroboam saying, "Amos has conspired against you in the midst of the house of Israel. The land is not able to bear all his words." Here was proof that Amos was uttering treason against the king! Then Amaziah said to Amos [verses 12-13] Predictably, the priest of Bethel was going to defend the king who gave him employment! This annoying prophet of gloom and doom was an outsider who was merely causing trouble.

But Amos answered [verses 14-15] Yahweh has sent me. I wasn't a prophet, but God took me from my ordinary employment to bring this message. The phrase, "I am no prophet, nor the son of a prophet" refers to the fact that many prophets were "career prophets." Elijah, Elisha, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Jonah, and others made their living as prophets. Amos was a herdsman and a dresser of sycamore figs. This was his one foray into prophecy, and he appeared to have no intention of continuing in it. He would go home when he had finished proclaiming his message. But because Amaziah had interrupted his prophecy, and had spoken against the Word of the LORD, he now received a specific individual prophecy. He and his family would be judged (16-17).

Beware how you respond to the Word of the Lord! God will judge those who despise his Word.

Then Amos declares his fourth vision, Amos 8:1-14 [read 1-2] If a plumb line was a bit odd as a symbol of judgment, a basket of summer fruit is just plain strange! But God explains the point in a pun: The word for summer fruit is "qayits." The word for end is "qets." What do you see Amos? A basket of "qayits." Indeed, Amos, the "qets" has come upon my people Israel. And the rest of the chapter continues to utilize the agricultural theme, with references to the harvest in verses 5-6, and the famine in verses 11-14. God is declaring to Israel that they are ripe for judgment, like a basket of summer fruit. "The songs of the temple shall become wailings in that day, declares the Lord Yahweh." "So many dead bodies!" "They are thrown everywhere!" "Silence!" "Hear this, you who trample on the needy and bring the poor of the land to an end, saying, 'when will the new moon be over, that we may sell grain? And the Sabbath, that we may offer wheat for sale? that we may make the ephah small and the shekel great and deal deceitfully with false balances, That we may buy the poor for silver and the needy for a pair of sandals, and sell the chaff of the wheat?" (8:3-6).

Once again, Amos blends worship and ethics. The wealthy have been worshiping in the temple of Bethel, but they have not set their heart on the Lord. Instead, they are singing their psalms half-heartedly, just waiting for the Sabbath to end, so they can go fleece the poor.

This is one problem that the American church does not have. Israel spent six days a week trampling the needy, and the seventh day they spent plotting their strategy for the next week. American Christians, I am happy to say, do not do this. Instead, by rejecting the Sabbath altogether, they spend seven days a week trampling the needy! But seriously, we may not trample the needy by starving them. America's poor are better fed than most nations. But we trample them by ignoring them. Yes, it is a sin to actively oppress the poor, but remember that there are not only sins of commission, but also sins of omission. Where is the Reformed church in Benton Harbor? Where is the Presbyterian church on the west side of South Bend? While we target our comfortable middle class suburbanite neighbors, we ignore our poor, needy neighbors; because they require too much effort.

I'm as guilty as anyone. I've lived in a multi-racial neighborhood for nearly two years, and I haven't so much as met more than four of my neighbors. We wind up preaching a gospel that appeals to "our type," but not to "their type." Charles Hodge, a theology professor at Princeton Seminary, wrote in the 1850s that he feared that the Presbyterian Church would become an upper-middle class church, in part because of the way we require each congregation to pay its own pastor. What would happen to churches in poorer neighborhoods? Doesn't this requirement that each church pay its own pastor make it impossible to minister among the truly poor? Hodge urged the church to consider a plan that would supplement the salaries of pastors in poorer communities, so that the gospel could be preached to the poor. The Presbyterian church did not listen to Hodge. And today, most mainline Presbyterian churches not only do not preach to the poor, they do not preach the gospel at all.

And conservative Presbyterian churches--what about us? We've bought into the market approach to the church. We think of ourselves as a niche market, appealing to those who want "Reformed" preaching. That's not what we should be about. That may sound odd coming from an OPC minister! But my calling is not to preach a denominational message. My calling is to preach the Word of the Lord, the gospel of Jesus Christ, the whole counsel of God. Now, I believe that this gospel is best summarized by our Shorter Catechism, but as Presbyterians have long pointed out, the doctrines of our Shorter Catechism are heartily affirmed by orthodox Anglicans, congregationalists, and charismatics, and with a few exceptions are affirmed by Baptists, Lutherans, and Methodists. The church has no business trying to focus on a niche market. We need to reach the entire Michiana region with the gospel. We should give thanks that there are many other churches that are working toward the same end, and we should work together with them in any way that we can; but that does not change our responsibility to make disciples of all nations--not just people like ourselves.

It would be easy to spend my whole time preaching from Paul. A lot of Reformed ministers do. But the Word of God is bigger than Paul. This is why I've sought to preach from every portion of the canon. Colossians, 1 Peter, Psalms, and Amos in the morning, along with the catechetical series. And Exodus, Deuteronomy, Revelation and Leviticus in the evening. The word of God speaks to every aspect of life. It is not an economic treatise, but it tells us how to think about money. It is not a sociology text, but it tells us how to relate to society. It is not a political manifesto, but it challenges every political party with its demands for justice and equity.

How does the word of God do this? Well, look at God's oath in 8:7-10. Yahweh swears by the pride of Jacob. This is remarkable. Usually God swears by himself, because he is the one who is unchangeable, but here he swears by the pride of Jacob, as if to say, "your pride, O Jacob, is as unchanging as my holiness!" In other words, it's an insult! God swears to bring destruction upon Israel. But notice how he will do it: "And on that day, declares the Lord Yahweh, I will make the sun go down at noon and darken the earth in broad daylight. I will turn your feasts into mourning and all your songs into lamentation. I will bring sackcloth on every waist and baldness on every head; I will make it like the mourning for an only son and the end of it like a bitter day." Jeremiah 15:9 and Micah 3:6 also speak of this sort of darkness, hearkening back to the darkness that fell upon Egypt prior to the death of the firstborn. What God did to Egypt he will now do to Israel. This is what sin deserves. The Day of the LORD--"that day"--will be a day of darkness and gloom (5:18-20).

Jesus spoke of the same sort of thing in Matthew 24 that we read earlier. Commentators have disagreed about whether Jesus is still talking about the destruction of the temple or whether he is referring to the final judgment. Silly commentators! When Amos speaks of the exile of Israel, was he referring to what was about to happen a generation later, or was he speaking of the death of Christ? Of course he was speaking of the exile of Israel, but since the exile of Israel is a picture of the death of Christ, you cannot think of the one without the other. Likewise, since the destruction of the temple is a picture of the destruction of this age, you cannot think of the one without the other. When God sent Israel, his firstborn son, into exile because of his sins, he was showing them that sin must be judged. As he repeated twice in the last two visions, "I will never again pass by my people." I must judge my people according to my righteous standard-my law. Likewise, when God destroyed the temple in AD 70, he signified to us that this age is coming to an end.

So do not put your hope in this age. Remember that your hope is seated at the right hand of the Father. Examine your priorities. Where are you focusing your time? Your money? Your energy? Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness. Set your hearts and minds upon Christ. And love your neighbor as yourself. And remember, as Jesus told the lawyer in Luke 10, your neighbor is that beat-up, half-dead guy lying in the street. If all you do is love each other, then you are no better than the pagans (Mt 5:43-48). You must love those who are hard to love. Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord Yahweh, 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.

Because Israel has not worshiped God with their whole heart, and because they have not loved their neighbor-the poor. God is going to shut up. Israel has complained against his prophets. They have refused to put into practice the word of the Lord, so God is going to give them what they want. They want him to leave them alone. He will do it! May we never be so obstinate as to provoke our God to silence! Because when God shuts up, that means you are in real trouble! That means that you are no longer even worth warning.

Israel will wander from sea to sea, from north to east; running to and fro, searching for the Word of the Lord, but they will not find it.

The lovely virgins and the young men shall faint for thirst, because they do not have the word of the Lord.

God will not speak to Israel again. He will speak to Judah and to Jerusalem. But he will not speak to Israel and Samaria, not until the day that our Lord Jesus Christ stood by the well in Samaria. If you remember the prophecy of Amos, then their encounter becomes all the more remarkable. The famine of hearing the word of the Lord has ended! The Samaritan woman, "fainting with thirst", encounters the living water. "Whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty forever." In Jesus Christ, God has spoken once again to Samaria. He is the Word of God. He is the bread of life and the living water; whoever comes to him shall not hunger, and whoever believes in him shall never thirst.

Let us pray.

[Grant, Almighty God, that as you continue to recall us to yourself, and though you see our sins and our wickedness, yet you still extend your hand to us, and exhort us with holy admonitions, and even frighten us with warnings and threats so that we may not run headlong to our own ruin-O grant that we may not be deaf to your gracious admonitions, nor be hardened against your threats, but may we become submissive to your will, and return to the right way and walk in it, and follow your calling through our whole life, until we at length reach the mark which is set before us, and are gathered into your heavenly kingdom, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.]

Copyright © 2003 Peter J. Wallace