You Didn’t Get Away With It – Amos 1-2
Out of the fields came a man named Amos, a farmer and a shepherd. God gave him a message that “The Lord will roar from Zion” causing fields and mountains to mourn.
His message begins by looking at the transgressions of many Gentile nations – Damascus, Gaza, Tyrus, Edom, Ammon, and Moab (1:1-2:3). All of these nations did something to sin against God and He was holding them responsible.
But God does not stop with the Gentiles. He proceeds to talk about the sins of Judah (the Southern Kingdom) and then sins of Israel (the Northern Kingdom). Judah despised God’s law, disobeyed God’s commands, listened to the lies of idols, and, as a result, a fire would come and devour them (2:4-5).
Israel is the main focus of the book of Amos, and the sins of Israel are elaborated on more fully (2:6-16). Not only were they guilty of injustice, corruption, sexual sin, and idolatry (v.6-8), but they also spurned the blessings and kindness of the Lord (v.9-12). As a result, they would be crushed by God’s judgment and no warrior would escape no matter how skilled (v.13-16).
The lesson here is that no one got away with sin. Some of the sins happened many years before, but God saw and God knew. God judged the Jew as well as the Gentile.
At first, Israel and Judah may have rejoiced to hear of their enemies being judged, but then things came closer to home. Soon, they realised that they had more guilt than all the other nations. They had been blessed more and given more knowledge of God and so their sins were more serious.
None of us can escape. God could make a list of way more three or four of our sins. Our only hope is to repent and turn to God, believing on Jesus Christ who died and took all of our sins upon Himself to save us and free us.