Echoes From the Campfire

[Don Adkisson]

      “Bein' stupid ain't a crime in this country. If it was, there'd be more folks behind bars than what's walkin' down the streets.”

                    --Lou Bradshaw  (and Cain Smiled)

       "O you simple ones, understand prudence, and you fools, be of an understanding heart."

                    --Proverbs 8:5 (NKJV)
------------------------------------
I have been perusing my notes from a class I have taught in the past on the Minor Prophets.  If you haven't read them much, I would suggest you take the time and read through them.  Look at the conditions of Judah and Israel and compare them with today.  Most recently I have been reading the Book of Amos.  This is a book that should make you stand up and take notice.  Upon rereading it, I kept thinking, "when is enough...enough"?
       One of the most familiar verses from Amos is, "'Behold, the days are coming,' declares the Lord God, 'When I will send a famine on the land, not a famine for bread, or a thirst for water, but rather for hearing the words of the LORD.'" (Amos 8:11, NASB)  If people do not want God He will turn away from them and let them go their own way.  Similar to those in Judges when everyone did what was right in their own eyes. (Judges 21:25).  Relative truth--postmodern truth--truth is what an individual wants to make it.  When it is apparent that people do not want God; He will give them what they want and will quit protecting and speaking to them.  Woe to that nation!  Woe to that person!
       We read in Amos of the false prophets and the wayward high priest.  It was this high priest, Amaziah who told Amos to leave and go somewhere else.  This kind of irked Amos, and I can imagine him pointing a bony finger at Amaziah and pronouncing the prophecy against him and his family.  Amos proclaimed, that the wife of Amaziah would become a harlot, his sons and daughters would fall by the sword, and that Amaziah would die in a foreign land (Amos 7:10-17)
       But I want to draw your attention to the first part of chapter 8.  Israel has not, will not repent.  They know the way.  The prophets, such as Amos, have proclaimed the truth to them, but to no avail--there is no repentance.  When Jonah preached to Nineveh, the capital of that dreaded nation of Assyria, the people repented and God spared them.  However, years later they did not hearken to the words of the prophet Nahum and were destroyed.  When is enough--enough?  Throughout history, God has allowed kingdoms to rise and to fall, and now He is telling Amos to proclaim to the people of Israel their fall.
       Amos prophesied during the reign of Jeroboam II (793-753 B.C.)  In verse 2 of chapter 8, Amos lowers the boom.  God has called time and time again for Israel to repent, but now He says, "The end has come for My people Israel.  I will spare them no longer."  That should sober us.  The U.S. should hearken to these words; every individual should listen to these words--there is a time when God says "enough is enough."  It was within a generation of Amos that destruction, death, and terror came.  Assyria invaded in 722 B.C. carrying the people away into captivity.  Read in Amos some of their treacherous methods; putting fishhooks through eyelids to lead them away.  It wouldn't take much tugging to get one's attention.  Assyria ruled through fear and terror and Israel felt the brunt of it.  Think of it, 722 B.C. and Israel ceased to be.  Judah lasted another hundred years and was conquered by Babylon in 606 B.C.  No longer a nation, no longer identifiable.  They wanted to do things their way instead of God's and they lost their identity.  For close to three millennia there was no nation called Israel.  In the time of Jesus there were Jews, but no identifiable country.  Even then the "pure" Jews hated those of Samaria for their were dogs--mongrels--having been transported by Assyria and intermarrying with other groups.
       This shameful story of Israel should be a warning to all believers.  Israel, God's chosen people, now have been taken away.  Yes, God has a remnant, go on and read chapter 9.  But take heed and as Gary G. Cohen has written, "Let every reader be sure that he is standing secure upon the ground of God's blessing, rather than upon the land of sin and rebellion, wherein only sorrow and grief abide.  As in the case of Israel, there is fullness of blessing only when Jehovah is in truth your God."  Yes, there is a time when God says "enough is enough."

     D.C. Adkisson