”The Sovereign Lord showed me a vision. I saw him preparing to send a vast swarm of locusts over the land. This was after the king’s share had been harvested from the fields and as the main crop was coming up. In my vision the locusts ate every green plant in sight. Then I said, “O Sovereign Lord, please forgive us or we will not survive, for Israel is so small.” So the Lord relented from this plan. “I will not do it,” he said.” Amos 7:1-3 NLT
Amos has three visions in this chapter. The first, a swarm of lolkus eating up every plant. The second, a great fire, devouring the land. And the third, a plumb line showing how off, how crooked, Israel had become. In the first two it is clear that these “natural” disasters would decimate the people of Israel. Amos asked for God’s forgiveness saying, “Israel is so small.” This little country had seen so much wealth, and so many miracles allowing them to hold off the larger countries surrounding it. It was because God was for them, not against them.
But Israel, like us, believed it was their own might with skillful leadership, with each passing year paying tribute and worship to fake gods and mocking their own history and heritage. They believed their good fortune was tied to their ability to be cool and trendy idolaters like their enemies. Generation after generation, king after king, they slid further into breaking their promises and forfeiting their rights to God keeping His end of the covenant.
What is so interesting is this idea that God tells Amos what He will do, Amos ask Him not to. God “relents,” Hebrew: nacham – To comfort, to repent, to relent, to be sorry. So, is God’s sovereignty open to negotiation? Or maybe it is better understood as God being open to humble repentance.
On the third vision, Amos sees a plumb line showing just how far off the King of Israel really is. God will no long ignore the discrepancy, but tells Amos that the judgment will come against all the pagan shrines, the temples and King Jeroboam himself will be destroyed. God’s long suffering has limits, His patience will not be tested to endure forever.
Where does that leave us, as a new covenant believer under the covering of Jesus sacrifice for our sins? It leaves us forgiven from the judgment of death, but not from experiencing the consequences of our sins. It is the same today as it was then – God desires obedience over sacrifice! Hebrews 6:4-6 talk about the impossibility of those who have fully experienced the grace of God, tasting of the gift of the Holy Spirit and then turning away, denying it all – they are in danger of not being able to come back to repentance and thereby rejecting the Son of God. They themselves are nailing him to the cross once again! We too must be careful of not living a life of consistent worship of our own modern idols, with patterns of sin and disobedience without repentance.
Prayer
Dad,
These Amos prophecies are encouraging on one hand and frustrating on the other. Encouraging because you are perfect in your justice and judgments. Frustrating because sin is very much a human frailty and is most insidiously designed to hit us in the most intimate ways. It’s powerfully alluring. Without your help, your strength and your Spirit working in us, I don’t see it even possible to bear it or beat it! I am thankful for your grace and mercy that covers my sin. I cannot wait until the day that it does not invade my life any longer.