For those of us that have not grown up on a farm or in an agrarian culture, this can be a puzzling image. But imagine corn shaken about so that while the dust and chaff fall through the holes in the seive, the solid grains remain. The wicked are removed, the righteous preserved. It’s a process brought on churches, organizations, or movements that have need to be returned to their original spiritual purity. There’s probably a strong lesson here about the need to remove wickedness rather than tolerate it, hoping it will be overcome by righteousness. That does not appear to be a biblical principle applicable to God’s people.
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The physical judgments of God mirror spiritual conditions. Throughout the Bible, a wide variety of symbols, types, and analogies are made between food/eating and God’s Word. Grain, bread, manna, and eating are but a few examples. Even the miraculous feeding of Israel in the wilderness between Egypt and Canaan had a greater work concerning God’s Word.
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David was a shepherd called to be king, Elisha was called from the plough to be Elijah’s replacement, Peter and John called from their fishing boats, Matthew from his tax collector’s booth, and Amos from his flocks and orchards to speak as directed by God. God’s calling is not prequalified by status, education, heritage, or any of the most common blanks for which we’d have to provide a description on a resume. What these examples all have in common is a willingness to immediately leave the old life completely behind to convey God’s message as directed. They were all committed to His Word.
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God judged the first generation of Israelites that refused to take Canaan as ordered by making them wander for 40 years in the wilderness until that generation died; that is, paid the price for their sin. What God is stating here is that because of the hardness of their heart and predisposition to worship false gods, it didn’t matter if they followed the rituals provided in the Law of Moses because God did not accept their sacrifices. The same case is being stated in judgment of the generation at Amos’ time, that God refused to acknowledge and receive their sacrifiices and worship because He knew that they were spiritually unfaithul in following alternate false gods.
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What is the right response to tragedy, calamity, or disaster on any scale whether directed at us personally or as part of a larger whole? It’s a repeated biblical pattern that in such times, the quality of one’s faith and righteousness is proved by the speed to which we turn to the Lord…or not. The biblical examples of righteousness provided in the character and examples of so many throughout Scripture have in common a greater concern for what might be affecting their spiritual life than the physical.
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I am continually amazed and simultaneously puzzled at how Christians approach the End Times. Basically, Christians immersed in God’s Word agree on the basics. Most of the discussion involves the minor points that don’t negate the whole. But in general we know that there will be a rapture, there will be a tribulation, there will be a final conflict at Armageddon, Christ will reign for a thousand years, there will be a final judgment, and a lot of highlights in between. We seem to get sidetracked mostly by the one thing we don’t know: “When?” Putting aside the fact that Jesus specifically and categorically stated we would NOT know “when”, :”(Matthew 24:36)”: He does provide an absolute set of guidelines of how to deal with the timing of all these things:
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Judgment was pronounced on both the southern kingdom of Judah and the northern kingdom of Israel, together the whole of God’s people. Judah’s problem seems to be changing God’s Law from its original and right application into something worldly which God here labels, “Their lies”. Israel didn’t seem to bother with even the appearance of trying to keep God’s commandments and were wholly given over to the things and greed of this world. One was attempting to wrest some kind of spiritual payment, the other earthly. In their example we have two of the most common models of what goes wrong with a church, ministry, or movement, both rooted in pride.
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