Tag: God is Sovereign over His Creation - Amos 1-4

Amos 3:6

Is a trumpet blown in a city,

and the people are not afraid?

Does disaster come to a city,

unless the Lord has done it?

Tag:  God is Sovereign over His Creations

As this is being written a second hurricane is bearing down on the country.  There are warnings being sounded, even now.   Yet, any talk that God may be in the storm and there is reaction from both sides of the argument (God's Judgment on mankind and God's revealing Himself through disasters).   God wants our attention.   In Israel's day we see that God was sending disaster after disaster to get their attention, yet they would not listen. Note what God will say later in this prophecy:

Amos 4:6-10

“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.

Note that despite the disaster God brings to them, He states, "yet you did not return to me."   God often creates disaster so that we will have His attention.  Note what the Prophet Isaiah said:

Isaiah 45:7

I form light and create darkness,

I make well-being and create calamity,

I am the Lord, who does all these things.

God is in the business of revealing Himself to us.  That is the point of creation: God's Revelation (Psalm 19; Romans 1:19-20).    We need to recognize God in the disaster so that we can hear His Voice and believe His message: He loves us and wants us to serve Him.  Israel failed in their worship and service to Him because they made this life their muse.   God took away everything they had and they still did not see the power, the sovereign, the love of God.