October 11, 2022

And from the prophet even to the priest, Everyone deals falsely. They have also healed the hurt of My people slightly, Saying, “Peace, peace!” When there is no peace. Were they ashamed when they committed abomination? No! They were not at all ashamed. Jeremiah 6:13b-15a

The condition of apostate Israel in Jeremiah’s day and the condition in the Christendom of today are eerily similar. In our own country we have had periods of national optimism, growth spurts in the economy, booming businesses, and other signs of “success” in the eyes of the world. We even seem to be “booming” spiritually in many of the churches, both Protestant and Catholic. But, like Israel before it was banished to disintegrate into the surrounding pagan cultures, and like Judah before being hauled away to Babylon, we are ridden with problems that are actively seething and undulating beneath the shiny surface. There is a prevailing false sense of security. The worship and lifestyle of professed believers are permeated with pagan practices. Underneath it all is a prevailing trend of greed, injustice, physical and mental ailments, and, worst of all, callousness to the disciplining hand of God.

During similar times in Israel, an agriculturally inclined “regular guy” was used of the LORD to convey a divine message. His name was Amos. He was a sheep breeder and a tender of fruit trees. Along with Jeremiah’s words of coming judgement, the words of Amos, the farmer-turned-prophet, prophetically echo through the centuries directly into our ears today, if we are willing to hear. The Jews had taken oral traditions (now written in their Talmud) commanded nowhere in the Scriptures and made a lifestyle of them. Have we not done the same thing today?

The name Amos comes from the Hebrew word amas, which means to lift a burden, to carry. It was a heavy burden that he carried: to declare coming judgement to a rebellious people who were not inclined to listen. But isn’t being told ahead of time a blessing? Yes, without a doubt, a blessing to one who heeds. The opportunity to “exit, stage right” is the opportunity to traverse this earth in a new direction. To actively pursue that new, heavenward direction creates an updraft; one that can help usher a new direction into the lives of others. It is the overcomer’s heavenly gift of power to resist Satan and the gravity of sin.

To get an overview of the condition of the world following the “Age of Enlightenment”, and a preview of what is to come—but more intensely, revisit the fifth letter of Jesus (Revelation 3:1-5), the fifth seal (6:9-11), and the fifth trumpet plague (9:1-12). Now hear Amos:

Surely the LORD God does nothing, Unless He reveals it to His servants the prophets. Amos 3:7 (see also John 15:15)

…you have turned justice into gall, And the fruit of righteousness into wormwood. Amos 6:12

And the LORD said to me, “Go, prophesy to My people Israel . . .” [but] you [the people] say, “Do not prophesy against Israel, and do not spout against the house of Isaac.” Amos 7:15b,16b