Self-Inflicted Famine (Amos 8:1–14)

Chapter 8 of Amos announces the end game for Israel. It contains fourteen verses promising God’s imminent judgement. Despite God’s prophetic warnings and various forms of chastening, the Northern Kingdom, Israel, had refused to repent of its covenantal infidelity. The consequence was the (irreversible) covenantal death penalty. I think this is the saddest and most sobering of the nine chapters of this brief prophecy. It is also the most frightening.

Amos pronounced a judgement so certain that any cry for deliverance was futile. They might as well be silent (v. 3) for God was. There was soon to be “a famine of hearing the word of the LORD” (v. 11). How tragic. How awful. How horrific. How hopeless. And how unnecessary.

Among the many lessons from Amos is that we dare not treat God with contempt; we dare not take his grace for granted.

History often swings on a pendulum between God’s wrath and love. Today, the love of God often obscures the equally true wrath of God. God is portrayed as a kindly grandfather who is always nice because allergic to wrath.

Decades ago, the twentieth-century theologian Reinhold Niebhur critiqued the unbiblical liberal Christianity of his day as presenting a “God without wrath who brings men without sin into a kingdom without judgment through a Christ without a cross.” This is much of Christianity is in our day. But Amos 8 should dispel such false notions.

Israel took God’s gracious love for granted, revealing that she never really heard his word of grace. The results were tragic. Among God’s many judgements was spiritual famine. We need to learn.

We will study this chapter and the theme of self-inflicted famine under two main headings: (1) A Final Festival (vv. 1–10) and (2) A Frightful Famine (vv. 11–14).

A Final Festival

First, we find, in vv. 1–10, a final festival.

First, we note what Amos saw: “This is what the Lord GOD showed me: behold, a basket of summer fruit. And he said, ‘Amos, what do you see?’ And I said, ‘A basket of summer fruit’” (vv. 1–2).

In this fourth of God’s five visions of judgment upon Israel (7:1, 4, 7; 9:1) Amos was shown “a basket of summer fruit.” The “summer” harvest (September-October) was the last harvest of the year. It consisted of figs, grapes, pomegranates, and perhaps olives. Amos saw a successful harvest and a cause for celebration; he saw God’s bountiful kindness. This was celebrated at the Feast of Tabernacles, which began with a Sabbath and ended with a Sabbath. It celebrated God’s faithfulness in sustaining his people. But the fruit which Amos saw, and perhaps celebrated, was not actually what was happening.

Having shown Amos the vision of the summer basket, God spoke: “Then the LORD said to me, ‘The end has come upon my people Israel; I will never again pass by them. The songs of the temple  shall become wailings in that day,’ declares the Lord GOD. ‘So many dead bodies!’ ‘They are thrown everywhere!’ ‘Silence!’” (vv. 2–3).

There is a play on the Hebrew words for “summer” and “end.” Spoken, they sound much the same. While Amos saw a ripe harvest, pointing to celebration, God saw a rotten harvest that would end in condemnation. He said so.

Literally, the “end has come.” There was no more opportunity for Israel to bring forth righteous fruit. As Betts observes, “Just as Israel’s agricultural cycle had an end, so will Israel as a nation.” Making this clear God said, “I will never again pass by them” (v. 2).

As we have seen before, this statement points to the first Passover when Israel exited Egypt (Exodus 12:13). The shed blood of the sacrificial substitutionary lamb ensured that God’s wrath would pass over them, falling rather upon those not so redeemed. But here Amos says that they could no longer rest in such protection, for now their blood would be shed and there would be “so many dead bodies” (v. 3). Rather than celebrating in booths they would be burying bodies.

Rather than joyful “songs” in “worship,” there would be the sound of “wailings.” In the words of Jeremiah, they would bewail, “The harvest is past, the summer is ended and we are not saved” (Jeremiah 8:20). “In fact, we are damned.”

What a terrifying thought. What a horrific experience. To assume that all is well with our soul only to hear, “The end has come”—you are not saved (see Matthew 7:21-23).

“Silence!” is not a suggestion but a command (cf. 6:10). There was no recourse for repentance, no hope of deliverance. God would not hear. The end had come with the fruit ripe for rejection. Like the prophecy of the cursed fig tree (Mark 11:11–26), God’s people had failed to bring forth God’s desired fruit and therefore they would be cut off.

There is no worse hopelessness than when God says, “I will no longer listen to you.” If we stop listening to God, there may come a time when he no longer listens to us (Isaiah 66:4; Ezekiel 20:39). It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God—especially when he refuses to hear us. Therefore, let us not delay to listen and to obey him.

Our series in Amos is an opportunity to hear and then for God to hear us—regarding salvation, regarding sanctification.

God said the above because of what he had seen. They needed to hear the reasons for God’s judgement.

God, essentially, saw two things.

The charge of “trampling on the needy” and destroying “the poor of the land” is a horrible sin in any culture, including ours, yet most particularly for God’s people, who were called and commanded to care for the needy (those who need help, deliverance) and for the poor. Israel was such a nation (Deuteronomy 15:7–11; cf. Exodus 22:22–24; Deuteronomy 24:17–22).

There are many causes of poverty. Laziness is not the main cause, even if it is often our immediate assumption.

When God gave his law (e.g. in Deuteronomy), he gave it to the covenant community. He expected everyone to obey it. Therefore, when he speaks of the poor, he is not suggesting that they are poor because of some sin or character flaw. Sometimes people are poor because of sin—substance abuse, laziness, covetous decisions, illegal activity—but the major reason people become poor is the result of the actions of others.

Here, the vulnerable among God’s people were being oppressed by God’s people! Because God’s people were not loving God, they failed to love their neighbours, including their most vulnerable neighbours. It has always been this way.

How do we view and treat the poor and needy we encounter each week? Because of the wealthy community in which I was raised, I never encountered beggars. But I learned from my parents about showing dignity to the poor and needy.

How do we view and treat the poor and needy in our own congregation? Begrudgingly? Judgementally? Self-righteously? Or joyfully (Acts 20:35)?

Verse 5 summarises well the covetous attitude of the upper class: “skimping on the measure, boosting the price, and cheating with dishonest scales” (NIV). All this was being planned while God’s people were at worship!

They could hardly wait for the appointed festival to conclude. They could hardly wait until the church service was over so they could return to their true god (see Colossians 3:5). Their times of corporate worship were merely a “necessary inconvenience” (Betts)—necessary to save face but inconvenient to their true pursuit.

Their mouths said and sang one thing but their hearts were focused on other things. Their bodies were in the right place but their hearts and minds were elsewhere. While they should have been listening to God’s word and responding to him in humble worship, they were thinking about money. Specifically, they were thinking about how to rip off the vulnerable. Prosperity theology is obviously not something new under the sun!

They were thinking about how to inflate prices through manipulating the currency while at the same time adulterating their product with filler. And if that wasn’t enough, they were planning how to enslave the vulnerable.

Their duplicitous worship became a cancerous and to-be-damned characteristic of the majority of God’s people. It called for God’s judgement.

This pathetic scene was not as rare as we might think. It perhaps was more common than we imagine.

During the days of the despotic rule of Pol Pot in Cambodia (1975–79), Christians—and many non-Christians—were forced to live on boiled roots of trees and branches as the materialistic Communists abused the populace. This is precisely what the wealthy in Israel were doing to their poor neighbours. Small wonder their end had come (v. 2).

As we have seen, corporate worship was, for most of Israel, merely a necessary interference. Let’s let God’s word search us. Are we guilty of the same? Are we engaged? What are looking for as we gather?

Let us guard against the evil of honouring God with our lips while our hearts are far from him (see Isaiah 29:13; Mark 7:6–7ff).

Verses 7–10 reveal what God would do in response to Israel’s unfaithfulness:

The people had been commanded to be silent when judgement came because God would not hear their pleas for deliverance. Nevertheless, there would be plenty of noise. We hear some of it in this passage.

It was too late to hope for forgiveness. The earthquake of God’s judgement was about to arrive with no opportunity for escape. God said so; in fact, he swore so.

Earlier, the Lord had sworn by his holiness and by his own name that judgement would come. It was therefore certain (4:2; 6:8). He did so here also.

“The LORD has sworn by the pride of Jacob” is perhaps an ironic phrase by which Amos sarcastically implies, “You who boast in your greatness, well God will destroy that greatness.” Perhaps more probably, God was swearing by himself, the one who should be the nation’s boast (Jer 9:24). Regardless, God was certifying that judgment was coming and the land would shake when it came. Like the Nile, which floods the land, so God’s wrath (through Assyria) would overtake the nation, flooding it with his wrath.

Be sure that your sin will find you out. God will not always stay his hand. God avenges evil. Be fearful and be comforted!

Amos uses metaphorical language to describe a cataclysmic judgement. Of course, this is not to be taken in a woodenly literal fashion; it speaks, instead, of an earth-shaking downfall of a nation (see Ezekiel 32:7; Joel 2:10; Isaiah 13:10; Matthew 24:29). Israel, as she was, would be no more. God would use Assyria to destroy her. This describes history. Be aware. Be alert. Be vigilant. God also removes churches (see Revelation 2–3).

Verse 10 describes the effect of this judgement. Their hypocrisy would be exposed. No more pretence, no more soulless singing, no more prayerless prayers, no more positive thinking, but rather mourning for the dead—such mourning as the loss of “an only son.” The apt description is grief “like a bitter day.”

God, unlike humans, is not controlled by emotions. We should be grateful. Nevertheless, God does feel. When he tells Israel that she will experience the sorrow as of losing “an only son,” he could very well relate. He was anticipating such a “bitter day.” That yet-to-be “bitter day” is the only reason we can find hope in this otherwise hopeless passage.

When Yahweh commanded Abraham to offer up his only son—Isaac, whom Abraham loved (Genesis 22:1–2)—he was well aware the sacrifice he was demanding of Abraham—a sacrifice he himself had prepared to make from before the foundation of the world (John 3:16). Our God was well aware of the future bitterest of days when all the earth would go dark and the Father would turn a deaf ear to the cries of his Son. On that day, the Father would say to his only begotten Son—his sinlessly perfect only Son—“Silence! I will not deliver you. Not yet anyway.” Jesus Christ, God’s only Son, would pay the price for our sins, the price of the wrath of God. God would flood his Son with his wrath like the Nile flooded the plains. The sun would literally go down at noon for the next three hours and the earth would darken in broad daylight (Luke 23:44–45). This was because God was bringing to a final end his punishment for the sake of his people.

All who trust the Lord Jesus Christ for reconciliation with and forgiveness from God had the wrathful wages of their sin paid for by Jesus when he died on the cross. God poured out his full punishment for the sins of all of his people during those three hours of darkness. For this reason, there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus (Romans 8:1).

But those who refuse his gift, who turn a deaf ear to his gracious offer, will have to experience everlasting darkness and will drown in the wrath of God forever. Such sobering truth should produce repentance in those lost in their sins while producing rejoicing for those who have been gracious recipients of so great salvation. Rather than the Lord’s return being a bitter day, it will prove to be a better day—the best day!– or those who have been humbled to heed the call of the gospel.

Second, we read of a frightful famine (vv. 11–14).

“Behold, the days are coming,” declares the Lord GOD, “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” (v. 11).

What an ominous judgment. A time was coming—in their near future—when Israel would hunger to hear from God and yet he would refuse to speak to them. Physical famine can eventually lead to death, but this kind of famine seal one’s spiritual death. Craigie observes, “The coming famine would culminate in the starvation of the spirit, not the body, but when the spirit dies within a person the carcass is of little value.”

Physical famine is often beyond one’s control. Drought, floods, hail, fire, pestilence, war, or economic exploitation can destroy food supplies resulting in horrific and inescapable famine. Yet the spiritual famine prophesied here was completely avoidable. Time and again, God sent providential reminders, including various forms of chastening, upon the nation yet they would not hear. Yahweh sent prophets—repeatedly—calling the nation to repent, and yet they refused to hear. God’s patience had come to an end. Since they would not heed what they had heard, they would not have opportunity to hear again. And they would starve to their spiritual death. In fact, they were already as good as dead. There comes a time when God stops speaking. I am not sure there is any worse kind of judgement.

Can you hear? Are you hearing?

Dry reading of God’s word serves as a wakeup call for me. Though not every exposure to God’s word is met with wonder, nevertheless God’s word should be meaningful to us. “Hearing the words of the LORD” is the normal experience of the Christian, for God’s word is living and active (Hebrews 4:12).

When my reading is merely perfunctory, when God seems silent, I want to examine my heart. When I experience this kind of famine, I plead with the Lord as did Samuel of old: “Speak, for your servant hears” (1 Samuel 3:10).

Is there some sin I refuse to repent of, despite the Spirit’s urging? Am I bitter about something or someone? Have I been too busy listening to ungodly voices, distracted by that which is fallen and fading, that I have lost my ability to hear from God?

If the Lord has spoken to me in an area and I have refused to hear, I should not expect he will speak to me in another area. As a mentor often reminded me, if I don’t obey the light God has revealed to me, don’t expect him to reveal new light. Ah, but “if we walk in the light as he is in the light then we have fellowship with one another [that is, with the Triune Godhead] and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin” (1 John 1:7).

What the Godless Sought

Amos makes clear that those who trusted in self-styled and superficial worship would die in their sin. Those who thirsted for political stature, military prowess, material prosperity, and religious respectability “shall fall and never rise again” (v. 14). Their false religion would never satiate their spiritual need and God would no longer offer them himself as the bread of Life. “The people who would not hear the word of God taste the poor faire of man-made religion” (Motyer). “They call to a power that has no power, a god who is absent and does not exist” (Smith).

Amos portrayed the nation in dire straits, hungering and thirsting to hear the word of God. They realised they were in trouble and so they sought deliverance. “Please, Lord, speak to us. We will hear!” And yet a prophet was not to be found. The pulpits were silent. One time street-preachers had put away their sandwich boards, having left the land. The printing presses that, at one time, churned out faithful teaching, now sat idle. As the people gathered, awaiting another message (of hope?) from Amos, he did not show. The people went home as empty as they came. What a deplorable condition!

But, as before, they continued to search for God in all the wrong places (east, north, Samaria, Dan, Beersheba). They sought truth in superstition and in idols and self-styled religion.

They searched “east to north” and “from sea to sea” (v. 12). Sadly, they didn’t go south to Jerusalem, God’s appointed place of worship. Even in their sorrowful remorse, they continued to seek salvation in their superstitions and false gods (v. 14). The point God, through Amos, was making is that religious devotion, devoid of obedience to God’s word, was futile and would only end in death. The spiritual famine of those who persisted in false religion would find the famine irrevocable. Judgment was final. Much like people who believe that doing religious things (christening, church attendance, reading the Bible, tithing, etc.) makes them right with God, these people would find judgement soon falling. Beware the famine which leads to the false. It will prove fatal and final.

God’s silence does not eliminate religion. These verses make this clear. Though God stops seeking sinners, nevertheless sinners will always seek a god. And the search is tragic. There is no worse condition than to seek for truth anywhere other than in God’s word. And yet so many do. Be careful how you treat the word of God (see Romans 1:21, 24, 26, 28; 2 Timothy 3:8).

Every once in a while, I come across an old bulletin that mentions names of those who at one time sat in my own congregation under the word of God. Many of them seemed so keen for God’s truth. But then they began to reject the light. Over time, they hardened their hearts and closed their ears to hear God’s word. And now they are in the world, or in the grave. Be careful!

Even the youth—the “lovely” and vibrant “virgins” and “young men”—would fail in their quest for truth. They learned from the older generation to ignore God’s word. Both generations were now lost. Shameful. And so unnecessary.

I think about the soccer dad who once told me that it was more important to spend time with his son on Sunday as he played soccer than bringing his son to church. I wonder how that turned out? Has some crisis come to their family and have they found God to be silent?

When you go home and gripe about the church, when you speak disparagingly of your appointed shepherds, you are preparing your children for spiritual failure, for gospel rejection.

This sobering chapter teaches us that spiritual famine is self-inflicted. It results from persistent rebellion. We therefore dare not presume on God’s grace. We must respond to the opportunity to repent and receive God’s word.

God’s judgement upon Israel was final. Assyria came and the nation was no more. Yet this is not the end of the story.

After hundreds of years of silence, the famine ended. The Bread of life was sent to feed the spiritually hungry and to quench their everlasting thirst. This was made clear at another Feast of Tabernacles (see John 7:1-39).

Jesus promised that those who thirst for the true God will have their thirst assuaged. We simply need to believe in Jesus and out of our heart will flow rivers of living water.

Praise God we do not live in the days of Amos. And yet we have to do with the same God. May God grant us grace to hear and heed his word, thus avoiding the destructive and unnecessary spiritual famine. May today be the day of our salvation.

AMEN