Powerful sequence in Amos 4

“I gave you cleanness of teeth in all your cities,
And lack of bread in all your places,

Yet you did not return to me, declares the Lord.

 

I also withheld the rain from you
When there were yet three months to the harvest…
…So two or three cities would wander to another city
To drink water, and would not be satisfied;

Yet you did not return to me, declares the Lord.

I struck you with blight and mildew…

Yet you did not return to me, declares the Lord

I sent among you a pestilence after the manner of Egypt;
I killed your young men with the sword…

Yet you did not return to me, declares the Lord

I overthrew some of you,
As when God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah…

Yet you did not return to me declares the Lord.

Therefore thus I will do to you, O Israel;
because I will do this to you,
prepare to meet your God, O Israel!

For behold, he who forms the mountains and creates the wind,
And declares to man what is his thought,
Who makes the morning darkness,
And treads on the heights of the earth –
The Lord, The God of Hosts, is his Name!”

Questions and Implications.

1) What degree of sovereignty and involvement does God have over nature?

2) What degree of sovereignty and involvement does God have over the “bad” stuff that happens in our lives?

3) What is God’s ‘commitment level’ to maintaining our personal comforts?

4) What does God desire most for us to have according to this text?

5) How does a God who according to this passage causes hunger and thirst – destroys and kills fit with your definition of a loving God?

6) What is God’s purpose from the text for taking these actions?

7) What does the passage say about man’s stubborn pursuit of the creation over the creator?

8) Why do you think God would be so dramatically committed to this purpose?

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