Attention, Please!
3/25/26 Bible Thought (Amos 4)
Main Idea: Sometimes trials are a clarion call crying out, “Return!”
A Look at the Text:
Following the ideas that privilege creates responsibility and election doesn’t bring immunity, we see in today’s text that God’s people had plenty of warnings before the day of judgment dawned.
God brought about famine and lack of bread. He, the Sovereign Lord, withheld the rain they desperately needed for their crops. Even more, when they grew, He hit their crops with mildew, blight, and locusts. Additionally, wartime, plagues, and the destruction of cities were the result of His hand. After each of these trials was recounted, the Lord hit His wayward people with the same charge, “Yet you did not return to me.”
God was the one who brought all manner of trials into their lives to wake them up. Their idols weren’t fixing their problems, and yet they remained resolute in their rebellion. They should have taken the hint. They should have repented. They should have returned.
“Yet you did not return to me.”
After ignoring all of the warnings implicit in these judgments, there now came an explicit one: prepare to meet your God, O Israel (Amos 4:12).
The same God who made the mountains and who daily sends the wind on its way was coming in judgment, and it wasn’t going to be pretty (Amos 4:13).
Bringing it Home:
At times, God will use trials to awaken His people from their spiritual slumber.
It can be very easy when life is good to neglect God, and when life is prosperous to fully forget Him. King Jeroboam II, the king of Israel in Amos’ time, led the nation during incredibly prosperous days. However, that prosperity was a detriment to their spirituality. Rather than provoke worship, prosperity resulted in idolatry on every level. As a result, God began to send problems to try to get their attention, and yet they never got the message.
While it is important to know that trials are not always the result of divine displeasure, we must also acknowledge that God does work in this way at times to draw His wayward people back to Him.
Perhaps then, if our lives are filled with all manner of problems and things just don’t seem to be working out, we should take a good, honest assessment of our relationship with God. Have we strayed? Have we let other things become our chief pursuit?
If there is a growing gap between our God and us, let us rest assured that He hasn’t moved. He never strays from us. We only stray from Him.
So then if our steps have erred, let us return to our gracious God with whole hearts and obedient feet, trusting that He receives the repentant sinner.
Let us take the hint before it is too late.
Challenge:
Am I willing to do the hard work of evaluating my spiritual walk?