God’s Word to Israel in Amos 4:6ff. is equally applicable to our nation as it faces its worst drought in many years. Ancient Israel, blessed by God with unique privileges, bad deserted their worship of Him. Despite His many warnings, they had “not returned to” Him. Therefore He gave their cities “cleanness of teeth”—famine. He had “withheld rain” from them three months before harvest time, during the growing season. Calvin in his Commentary called attention to the people’s increasing worries as this lesson was prolonged month after month. The spotty distribution of rain when it was given drove people from dried out districts to seek water in those areas that had received any, even then to remain unsatisfied. God declared that despite these continuing judgments, the people did not return to Him (vv. 9, 10, 11). Thus they continued to be urged, “Prepare to meet your God, O Israel!” (v. 12).
Although all sins call for the judgment of God, there are, according to Scripture, some that call for such special judgments on nations. The atheism that says there is no God, or in practice, lives as if there were no God, calls for such judgments. To the practical atheists who said in their heart (Zeph. 1:12) “The Lord will not do good, Nor will be do evil,” the Lord threatened, “Therefore their goods shall become a booty, and their houses a desolation; they shall also build houses, but shall not inhabit them; and they shall plant vineyards, but not drink the wine thereof.” These people were like those of our time. Although they may not deny God’s existence, they neither attribute good nor evil to Him. When God sends rain and abundant crops, they do not recognize them as His gifts or give thanks. When He sends drought and crop failure, they attribute them to the “jet stream” or the “greenhouse effect.” Such practical atheism is a sin that calls for the Lord’s judgment.
The prophet Joel had to predict the Lord’s judgments of drought and famine on a people who had given themselves over to drunkenness and riotous living. Consider our nation’s spreading and growing problems of “alcoholism” and drug addiction.
Thirdly, the Bible cites deceit, bribery and extortion as offenses that call for and get God’s judgments (Amos 5:10–17). God detests the sins of a nation that deals falsely in its business and commerce, to grow rich at the expense of neighbors. The Wall Street and Pentagon scandals are extreme examples that highlight a similar way of thinking and living that increasingly characterizes much of our nation’s society and economy.
The destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah is held up throughout the Bible as a classic example of God’s judgment upon sexual vice-brazen fornication and homosexuality. God wiped that out with a rain of fire that gives a glimpse of His ultimate judgment upon such arrogant ungodliness.
God threatened and btought the judgment of exile on His people for profaning His sabbaths (Jer. 17:27). And on their return Nehemiah saw the same sin calling for renewed judgments (Neh.13:15–18). God had long forewarned them against this sin in the giving of His laws (Lev. 26:31–35) and He had kept His word. Will drought and economic problems drive us from the pursuit of pleasure and recreation on the Lord’s Day to return to Him in worship?
One of the prominent reasons for God’s destruction of nations has been their shedding of the blood of the innocent and defenseless. God swept Judah into captivity because of that sin, which He “would not pardon” (2 Kings 24:4), and He would not let the Edomites get away with it either (Ezekiel 35:3ff.). How long will He put up with our nation’s 15year legalized slaughter of20 million unborn babies?
God’s judgments are particularly severe upon a people’s faithless religious leaders. In Zeph. 3:4–6 He said, “Her prophets are insolent, treacherous people; her priests have polluted the sanctuary, they have done violence to the law.” Therefore, “I have cut off nations, their fortresses are devastated; I have made their streets desolate, with none passing by. Their cities are destroyed; there is no one, no inhabitant.” Similarly, Jeremiah said in Lam. 4:11, “The Lord has fulfilled His fury; He has poured out His fierce anger. He kindled a fire in Zion, and it has devoured its foundations . . . . Because of the sins of her prophets and the iniquities of her priests, who shed in her midst the blood of the just,” May we who proclaim the Word of God be partly responsible for our nation’s present distresses, because of our unfaithfulness to God and His truth and to the souls of those to whom we are called to minister?
God also brings His judgments upon people who abuse, mock and despise the true and faithful messengers of His gospel. In 2 Chron. 36:15ff. such judgments are announced especially because of the people’s shameful mistreatment of the very people whom God had sent them for their welfare. When such faithful messengers of God are rejected, God says, “Behold, your house is left unto you desolate.”
These judgments of God in history reveal Him as the sovereign Creator and Provider, in order to lead people to repentance, and to warn them of the coming final judgment. If they will not listen, His word to them is “Prepare to meet your God, O Israel.” Are we listening to what He says to us in the present drought?
Claude D. DePrine, III is the pastor of the Christian Reformation Church at Grand Rapids, Michigan.