Are You Ignoring Something? Amos 4:6-12

God made man and this creation in such a way that we might “seek Him and perhaps grope for Him and find Him.” (Acts 17:27)] yet many live life sinfully and ignorant of what God desires for mankind.. 

The sinful generations of Israel before its fall to Assyria exemplify this. God repeatedly sent them prophets whom they ignored.  “Since the day that your fathers came out of the land of Egypt until this day, I have sent you all My servants the prophets, daily rising early and sending them. Yet they did not listen to Me or incline their ear, but stiffened their neck; they did more evil than their fathers.” (Jer. 7:25,26) So God moved on to other methods to call them to repentance.

God first sent famine (“cleanness of teeth”).“Yet you have not returned to Me.” (vs. 6) Then God sent such a severe drought. (vss. 7,8) and repeated, “Yet you have not returned to Me.” (vs. 8) Then came blasting hot winds, mildew, and tree and crop destroying worms to afflict them. “Yet you have not returned to Me.” (vs. 9) Then came an affliction that was comparable only to the plagues of Egypt, and again the refrain, “Yet you have not returned to Me.”(vs. 10) Then He gave them more time to repent, and tried again to correct them, but as they refused they were finally warned “Because I will do this to you, Prepare to meet your God, O Israel.” (vs. 12)

When such chastisements come on others, people often say (at least to themselves), “I wonder what they did to deserve that?” But they never seem to apply the same logic to themselves and ask, “What might I have done?” Despite the continual teaching of the scripture to examine ourselves, we’d much prefer to examine others. Let’s stop this and ask, “What is it that I have ignored and ‘Yet have not returned’ to the Lord?”