Not by Bread Alone

Pray

Lord God, You are worthy of my praise. Your grace is bestowed upon me, and Your love upholds me each day.

Read

Amos 8:1-14

^[1] Thus hath the Lord GOD shewed unto me: and behold a basket of summer fruit. ^[2] And he said, Amos, what seest thou? And I said, A basket of summer fruit. Then said the LORD unto me, The end is come upon my people of Israel; I will not again pass by them any more. ^[3] And the songs of the temple shall be howlings in that day, saith the Lord GOD: there shall be many dead bodies in every place; they shall cast them forth with silence. ^[4] Hear this, O ye that swallow up the needy, even to make the poor of the land to fail, ^[5] Saying, When will the new moon be gone, that we may sell corn? and the sabbath, that we may set forth wheat, making the ephah small, and the shekel great, and falsifying the balances by deceit? ^[6] That we may buy the poor for silver, and the needy for a pair of shoes; yea, and sell the refuse of the wheat? ^[7] The LORD hath sworn by the excellency of Jacob, Surely I will never forget any of their works. ^[8] Shall not the land tremble for this, and every one mourn that dwelleth therein? and it shall rise up wholly as a flood; and it shall be cast out and drowned, as by the flood of Egypt. ^[9] And it shall come to pass in that day, saith the Lord GOD, that I will cause the sun to go down at noon, and I will darken the earth in the clear day: ^[10] And I will turn your feasts into mourning, and all your songs into lamentation; and I will bring up sackcloth upon all loins, and baldness upon every head; and I will make it as the mourning of an only son, and the end thereof as a bitter day. ^[11] Behold, the days come, saith the Lord GOD, that I will send a famine in the land, not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water, but of hearing the words of the LORD: ^[12] And they shall wander from sea to sea, and from the north even to the east, they shall run to and fro to seek the word of the LORD, and shall not find it. ^[13] In that day shall the fair virgins and young men faint for thirst. ^[14] They that swear by the sin of Samaria, and say, Thy god, O Dan, liveth; and, The manner of Beersheba liveth; even they shall fall, and never rise up again. 

Scripture quotations taken from the King James Version, Public Domain

Meditate

Consider: "‘My food," said Jesus, "is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work" (John 4:34). Is that true of you?

Think Further:

Amos's fourth vision centers on a play between two similar-sounding Hebrew words. Amos sees some "summer fruit" (qayits); God declares that "the end" (qēts) has come for Israel. The NIV conveys this wordplay by using the word "ripe": "ripe fruits" and "the time is ripe." The vision underlines the certainty of judgment declared in the third vision. The noisy worship songs will turn into loud lamentations when disaster falls (3,10). The following oracle has echoes of the initial condemnation of Israel, but focuses on a new group, businessmen, with their greedy materialism. Instead of addressing the evil of poverty they seek to rid themselves of the poor, even by people-trafficking. "The love of money is a root of all kinds of evil" (1 Tim. 6:10), and that love kept a wealthy young man from following Jesus (Matt. 19:16-22). You do not have to be wealthy to be greedy and materialistic. All of us face such temptations, sometimes aroused by advertising.

The businessmen observe the religious festivals outwardly while inwardly fretting to get back to moneymaking with their false weights and measures and rigged balances. Once again, Amos condemns the separation of sanctuary worship from obedience to God's standards in everyday life. That kind of insincerity can be true of our Christian observances. The terror of God's judgment on Israel is depicted in terms of earthquake and solar eclipse (8-9). God declares that persistent rejection or silencing of those through whom he tries to speak (Amos 2:12; 7:12-13) will result in spiritual famine and drought. There would be no words from prophets or spiritual benefit from the worship at the sanctuaries. Jesus, echoing Isaiah, warned of this kind of danger (Mark 4:12; Isa. 6:9). That is why it is important to take God's Word seriously, understand it and put it into practice (Matt. 7:24-27; Jas. 1:22-25).

Apply

How would you describe your relationship to God's Word (11-13)? In making decisions, is it first choice or last chance? Do you mistake reading it for responding to it? Do you focus on promises rather than challenges?

Pray

Lord, help me not value gaining material "bread" more than discovering and doing Your will through studying Your Word