Amos
11
Amos chapter 8 begins with the fourth vision, after the locusts, the fire and the plumb line. The Sovereign Lord showed the prophet a basket of ripe fruit. Then the Lord said, “The time is ripe for my people Israel: I will spare them no longer.” Here are a people ripe for judgement. They have come into the presence of God not just with ripe fruit, but as ripe fruit, ripened over all the months and years of moral and spiritual probation.
“In that day”, declares the Sovereign Lord, “The songs in the temple will turn to wailing. Many, many bodies – flung everywhere! Silence!”
Israel has been sowing bad seeds of idolatry and injustice. Now it’s harvest time but instead of festival celebrations and songs of thanksgiving for this harvest, only the despairing sound of silence remains.
God is not mocked. What we sow, we reap. This is true individually and in the life of a nation. At the time of Amos’s ministry, northern Israel had been deteriorating for a couple of centuries. Gods of fertility were worshipped. Sanctuaries were crowded with worshippers, but they were places of paganism. Over the decades the seed has been sown; the crop is growing; soon ‘the end’ will come. It’s harvest time. As Michael Eaton explains in his commentary throughout, the long days of Jeroboam the Lord was giving Israel its last offer of survival. The nation had one generation left before the volcano would erupt. Anyone who witnesses the end of Israel as a nation would stand still in awed silence at the severity and thoroughness of God’s closing judgement.
In chapter 8 verses 4 to 6 (The Living Bible) we’re again given an insight into some of the crimes that have been perpetrated. “Listen, you merchants who rob the poor, trampling on the needy; you who long for the Sabbath to end and the religious holidays to be over, so you can get out and start cheating again – using your weighted scales and under-sized measures; you who make slaves of the poor, buying them for their debt of a piece of silver or a pair of shoes, or selling them your mouldy wheat.’
It’s deeply significant when God, who cannot lie, underlines His integrity by taking an oath. In chapter 4 verse 2 the Sovereign Lord swore by His holiness, in chapter 6 verse 8 He swore by Himself. Now in chapter 8 verse 7 He swears by the Pride of Jacob – how ironic is that? – “I will never forget anything they have done.”
It can be argued that when man gets out of step with God, nature itself gets out of step with man. Their covetousness has led them to ride roughshod over their fellow men. Leviticus chapter 19 verses 35 to 37 made it abundantly clear. “Do not use dishonest standards when measuring length, weight or quantity. Use honest scales and honest weights, an honest ephah (that’s a dry measure) or an honest hin (that’s a liquid measure). I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of Egypt. Keep all my decrees and all my laws and follow them. I am the Lord.”
False religion, which had gripped the nation, shows no mercy and is insensitive towards the helpless. Jesus in Matthew chapter 18 spoke so clearly of the servant who lost mercy because he failed to show mercy. God looks for mercy in the human race. It is part of human wickedness that men and women without God become unmerciful, heartless and ruthless. The Babylonians had no mercy (chapter 13 verse 18 and chapter 47 verse 6).
When judgement comes the land will shake. It will be like an earthquake, a flood and an eclipse all combined. It will be like a bitter bereavement. The Message Paraphrase Bible puts it this way (verse 9) “On Judgement Day, watch out!” These are the words of God, my Master. “I’ll turn off the sun at noon. In the middle of the day the earth will go black. I’ll turn your parties into funerals and make every song you sing a dirge.”
Amos was no ignorant peasant, but a godly man in touch with the One who holds the destiny of all peoples in His hands. He longed that his awesome God should be honoured and revered. He knew the psalmist was right when he declared, “Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord, the people He chose for His inheritance.” (Psalm chapter 33 verse 12)
Amos was the champion of the poor, the defender of the downtrodden and the accuser of the powerful rich. He was adept at sniffing out injustice especially when it was dressed up in religious garb. There is no more Amos can do now he has faithfully delivered God’s message in its undiluted form.
Here is an alarming truth we need to take to heart in the 21st century. A nation dying on its feet can only live if it gets on its knees and repents, because God will not wait forever. The prophet Isaiah was a contemporary of Amos and he expressed similar sentiments in the memorable words of chapter 55 verses 6 to 7, “Seek the Lord while He may be found; call on Him while He is near. Let the wicked forsake his way and the evil man his thoughts. Let him turn to the Lord and He will have mercy on him and to our God, for He will freely pardon.”