Amos: Seek The Lord and LiveSample

After the fourth vision there’s an interlude (8:4–14) before the fifth vision comes in chapter 9. It serves to build tension, but also returns to one of the dominant themes of the book: injustice.

The slight shift here is that Amos is not attacking the elites of society but the merchants. He accuses them of wanting to ‘do away with the poor’ (v. 4) – a kind of social cleansing. He quotes them in verses 5–6, revealing that they sit in church longing for the service to be over so they can get back to earning money unscrupulously in order to turn the poorest of society into their slaves.

Does that still happen in the modern West? Certainly some London borough councils are accused of replacing social housing with more expensive private property and then rehousing their tenants outside of London. Social cleansing still takes place.

We may not trouble ourselves with such things, but God does: ‘I will never forget anything they have done’ (v. 7). It’s as if God gets out His highlighter pen when He says, ‘The Lord has sworn by himself’. What wonderful comfort to those who receive no justice in this life. God will never forget anything the wicked have unjustly done.

Verses 8–10 describe the judgment that fell upon Israel in 722 bc. Yet for us now it is also evocative of Good Friday:

• A day when people gathered for the religious festival of Passover
• A day when darkness darkened the earth as the sun went down at noon (v. 9)
• A day when the ground split open as Christ died, much like the land trembling (v. 8)
• A day when God the Father mourned His only Son (v. 10)

Again we are faced with choosing a day of darkness – either trusting in the cross or facing the darkness of judgment when Christ returns: a day when God will not forget any injustice done.

Reflection

How does the knowledge that God will never forget injustices help you to bear with injustice now, either against you personally or on a larger scale?