Lesson 31: God's Sovereignty as Suffering Brings You Back to Him, part 1

Amos 4:1-11 - "Hear this word, you cows of Bashan, who are on the mountain of Samaria, who oppress the poor, who crush the needy, who say to your husbands, ‘Bring, that we may drink!’ The Lord GOD has sworn by His holiness that, behold, the days are coming upon you, when they shall take you away with hooks, even the last of you with fishhooks. And you shall go out through the breaches, each one straight ahead; and you shall be cast out into Harmon, declares the LORD. ‘Come to Bethel, and transgress; to Gilgal, and multiply transgression; bring your sacrifices every morning, your tithes every three days; offer a sacrifice of thanksgiving of that which is leavened, and proclaim freewill offerings, publish them; for so you love to do, O people of Israel!” declares the Lord GOD. ‘I gave you cleanness of teeth in all your cities, and lack of bread in all your places, yet you did not return to Me,’ declares the LORD. ‘I also withheld the rain from you when there were yet three months to the harvest; I would send rain on one city, and send no rain on another city; one field would have rain, and the field on which it did not rain would wither; so two or three cities would wander to another city to drink water, and would not be satisfied; yet you did not return to Me,’ declares the LORD. ‘I struck you with blight and mildew; your many gardens and your vineyards, your fig trees and your olive trees the locust devoured; yet you did not return to Me,’ declares the LORD. ‘I sent among you a pestilence after the manner of Egypt; I killed your young men with the sword, and carried away your horses, and I made the stench of your camp go up into your nostrils; yet you did not return to Me,’ declares the LORD. ‘I overthrew some of you, as when God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah, and you were as a brand plucked out of the burning; yet you did not return to Me,’ declares the LORD."


God’s words here sound pretty harsh. He does so to get their attention. The first thing He did was He called these ladies cows! Only God could get away with this.

They were being greedy, they were caring only for themselves, and they were even abusing the poor! Then to make matters worse, even when they did spend time with God, their heart was not in it. They were just going through the motions. It was just some dry stale man-made religion. Such behavior breaks the heart of God because God wants a beautiful loving intimate personal relationship with His people. According to our text, the reason these women got into this condition was because they sold themselves out to this wicked world system! The Bible calls this spiritual adultery. Out of love, God sent hardships over and over again to get their attention, to get them to return to Him. He wanted that loving intimate relationship back!

More on this in our next lesson.

* Read James 4:6-10 for more about our relationship with God.