“Behold, days are coming,” declares the Lord GOD, “When I will send a famine on the land, Not a famine for bread or a thirst for water, But rather for hearing the words of the LORD.” Amos 8:11
Amos was a simple shepherd from Tekoa, who was commissioned by the Lord to pronounce severe judgement on the surrounding nations and certain cities which encircled God’s chosen people.
But Israel was not exempt from God’s judgement, for they had followed after other gods and become a faithless and adulterous nation. For many chapters, Amos warned that inevitable judgement and oppression would fall on God’s chosen people, accusing the nation of disobedience, legal injustice, religious hypocrisy, boastful complacency, and luxurious indulgences.
A lack of food and drink is deadly for the physical body, but lacking the spiritual food that nourishes the soul, is truly calamitous. Food for the soul comes through hearing the Word of the Lord, and because of her unrepentant idolatry and gross apostasy, Israel was to experience a famine for the Word of God – a famine that lasts to this day.
Scripture indicates that a similar famine is scheduled for the Church in these last days, when men will be lovers of themselves and seek out preachers who teach what they want to hear, rather than what they need to know, “For the time will come when they will not tolerate sound doctrine; but wanting to have their ears tickled, they will accumulate for themselves teachers in accordance with their own desires,” 2 Timothy 4:3
