If you were walking out in the bush and you heard a lion roar you would certainly be alarmed. Amos announces to Israel that God’s word to them is like the roaring of a lion. He was sounding an alarm. It is really easy to think that everything is well with you when it is not. We resist facing up to our faults, particularly when things are going well (as they were with Israel at this time). I am constantly amazed by my own ability to ignore my faults and justify myself. This is why we need an alarm. I have prayed that God would set an alarm within me. I have prayed that when I am walking the wrong way, when I become selfish and proud, when I stray from God, that I would feel the sting of my contrariness. I don’t want to be happy going the wrong way without God and so I have asked God to make me feel the deep sadness that he feels when I go the wrong way. God had been trying to get Israel’s attention. He sent Amos to turn them around and to remind them of the disaster that inevitably befalls those who forsake God and his protective love. It was an alarm. Unfortunately, Israel would ignore this alarm and, as a result, within 20 years they would be destroyed and exiled forever by the Assyrians (721 BC). God didn’t want this to happen. But Israel ignored the vital warnings. So it did happen. Is God trying to get your attention?
Ask God to wake you up to what he wants to tell you.
Read Amos 3 and 4
