Amos 3:1-8
Ignoring the Signs

Hear this word that the LORD has spoken against you, O people of Israel, against the whole family that I brought up out of the land of Egypt:

    You only have I known
        of all the families of the earth;
    therefore I will punish you
        for all your iniquities.

    Do two walk together
        unless they have made an appointment?
    Does a lion roar in the forest,
        when it has no prey?

    Does a young lion cry out from its den,
        if it has caught nothing?
    Does a bird fall into a snare on the earth,
        when there is no trap for it?

    Does a snare spring up from the ground,
        when it has taken nothing?
    Is a trumpet blown in a city,
        and the people are not afraid?

    Does disaster befall a city,
        unless the LORD has done it?
    Surely the Lord God does nothing,
        without revealing his secret
        to his servants the prophets.

    The lion has roared;
        who will not fear?
    The Lord God has spoken;
        who can but prophesy?

New Revised Standard Version

Amos was the most unlikely of the prophets represented in the Old Testament. The opening of the book identifies Amos as a shepherd who received God's message and answered God's call to declare the message to both Israel and Judah. In chapter 7, Amos is confronted by the angry King of Israel, and he responds boldly that he is simply a herdsman with a message that won't be silenced.

For that time, God had to choose a messenger who was faithful to God when most people were unfaithful, and courageous when most people bowed to authority, and Amos had both those characteristics. However, Amos would be the first to say that what God didn't need was a messenger with great intelligence or insight. Here in chapter 3, Amos makes the points that the signs were obvious of what God was going to do. It's easy to see the shepherd in these descriptions, always aware of the lion in the woods, knowing how to set traps correctly, and responding quickly to come into the city walls for safety when the trumpet sounds. Everyone Amos knew would have the common sense to recognize the signs he mentions, and Amos calls the people of both the Northern and Southern kingdoms to have the same common sense about the warnings from God.

Amos is wise enough to realize that "common sense" is not always common. Those in the priesthood and those in authority were expected to be close enough to God to receive God's messages, and smart enough to see the signs that Amos saw, but they were not. They were too caught up in their own power struggles, their own desires, and their own interpretations of what God should do for them to see what God was really doing.

There are at least these two timeless, personal instructions for us in the story of Amos and the messages he carried from God:

• We do not need great skill and extensive knowledge for God to speak to us, because God always speaks to us in ways we can understand.
• The hard part is disengaging our own desires and being obedient to God's will so that we can accept what we hear from God.

There is a third instruction in the form of a warning in the second verse of this passage, as God speaks to the descendents of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. God holds us responsible according to how God has dealt with us. In the first chapter of Amos, God talks about punishment to surrounding contries because of the evil they have done, because their conscience should have convicted them of their evil works. For the people of God, the standards are much higher, for they have rejected not just their conscience, but they have distorted and manipulated the laws of God, the teachings of Moses, David, and Solomon, and the words and warnings of the prophets.

We have so much more! We have the life and teachings of Jesus, the writings of Paul, Peter, and John, the experience of personal salvation and the presence of the Holy Spirit. We have centuries of insight from God-inspired scholars, preachers, poets, and song writers. We have been so blessed! For us, more than for any people in any earlier time, it is so much more urgent that we listen to God, that we follow God's leading, that we are faithful.