PODCAST
God’s Broken Heart
July 15th, 2013
Amos 4:1-13
Amos, chapter 4, seems harsh. “The time will surely come,” God tells His people, “when you will be taken away with hooks, the last of you with fishhooks” (4:2). A terrible image! It gets worse: “I gave you empty stomachs in every city” (v. 6). “I sent plagues among you” (v. 10). “I killed your young men” (v. 10).
Verse 4 gives us a clue as to why God was so angry with His people: “Go to Bethel and sin; go to Gilgal and sin yet more. . . . This is what you love to do” (vv. 4-5). Five times in these 13 verses, God says, “yet you have not returned to me” (vv. 6, 8, 9, 10, 11). Do you hear the heartbreak in God’s voice? God had given His people ample opportunity to turn from their sins, but they would not. Even when disasters befell them, they did not examine their lives to see if they could be the cause of their own misery.
Even when we turn our backs on God, He will go to great lengths to recapture our attention. This is a great and redemptive love!
Author: Judi King
July 15th, 2013 at 11:40 pm
“Even when disasters befell them, they did not examine their lives to see if they could be the cause of their own misery.”
A “hook” is used for catching something. God’s love for us doesn’t want us to flirt with the disaster of the consequences of our sins. However, if we “first” don’t listen to those consequences, we will get snared with a hook hidden in our prey (someone else’s consequences).
As with the plagues, those who are in control, don’t listen and people die (at God’s hand) in order that the enemy of sin is weakened. .
July 15th, 2013 at 11:48 pm
Jesus is our great and redemptive love that breaks the cycle; but, again, we must listen.