If you’ve followed my overview of the book of Amos, you may have discovered themes that seem all too familiar, and perhaps you may have wondered how on earth did he know about Canada in 2023? Aside from being a seer, the history of men is a vicious reoccurring cycle of trading up what is good in God’s blessings to embrace that which is not. In Amos’ day, the kingdom of the north prospered economically, and they enjoyed a time of relative peace surrounding their borders. But with that prosperity came the sins of arrogance, greed, indifference, and a lack of purity especially in their worship. Men began to oppress others financially by charging outrageous prices for goods and impoverishing them to the detriment of forcing them to become slaves. They banished the mouthpieces of God’s word and threatened to have Amos brought before the king for criticizing their debauchery (Amos 7:10-17). They began to see themselves, not so much as a nation of Yahweh worshippers, but one that accommodated other forms of worship to other gods, and they weren’t too fond of criticism. They’d even gone so far as to erect a temple to Canaanite gods in Samaria (1 Kings 16:29-34) and seemingly few had a problem with it (1 Kings 19:18: 2 Kings 10:18-28). Bethel became a brothel and the people may have become a little too excited to go to that church on Sunday to participate in the sexual perversion with the temple prostitutes. The most horrible part of this delusion is that they thought they were immune to judgment both spiritually and tangibly. They thought they were fine because they still offered some form of worship to Yahweh, all the while mingled with the adoration of Baal. They banked heavily on their military position and wealth as fool proof detractors from anyone interrupting their comforts which, I might add, was proven to be dead wrong. There was a pendulum style shift in their economic standing in these periods where they went from a wealthy nation during the reign of Jeroboam, to losing everything due to heavy taxation, social chaos and losing control of their livelihoods due to their Assyrian neighbours. They eventually fell to the Assyrian army and were taken into exile.
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