Amos 8:11
“The time is surely coming,” says the Sovereign Lord, “when I will send a famine on the land—not a famine of bread or water, but of hearing the words of the Lord."
In chapters 7 and 8 we see God's options for judgment. The various means he has available to measure and determine the spiritual value of the people of the earth. The people can experience famine, plagues, the plumb line, war and exile into slavery. Great earthquakes and other natural disasters. And all these various dangers threaten the lives and security of mankind, but what results in the ultimate extinction of the people is spiritual death. A spiritual loss of the life-sustaining words of Yahweh is the ultimate destruction. No earthquake can match it, no swarm of locusts, no wildfire, not even the sun going dark can match the destruction caused in the soul when the people reject the word of God.
"My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?"
Psalm 22:7-8
“All who see me mock me; they hurl insults, shaking their heads. “He trusts in the Lord,” they say, “let the Lord rescue him. Let him deliver him, since he delights in him.”
Check yourself-
There's a lot of almost Christians these days. People who are kinda sorta followers of the Christian faith. And this happens all the time. From generation to generation we can see it. People in trouble pray. People feeling like an outcast attend public worship. People who want to be right, and respected for their knowing, study the Bible and hold fast to the traditions of the church, but bear no fruit in love for one another. And people living in overt sin, who have no interest in repentance, practice spirituality. Some even build a profitable business around these spiritual beliefs. And politicians love the Christian faith and their followers when they need their votes. There's always pomp and circumstance associated with these people. A lot of pride in their faith.
Israel in the prophet Amos' time was the same. Their king was corrupt. Their priests were corrupt. The people built altars to the pagan gods in their homes. Oh sure-they kept the traditional feasts and rituals, but they couldn't wait for the services to be finished so they could get back to the business of robbing the poor, and scamming the people.
What does it mean to be forsaken by God?
To be forsaken means to have the light of God’s countenance and the sense of his presence eclipsed by our own corrupted minds and hearts. A dark heart, dark conscience, and dark mind. So dark that the light cannot shine into it or through it. Jesus described it as if it is "doubly dark".
Matthew 6:23
"If your eye is bad [spiritually blind], your whole body will be full of darkness [devoid of God’s precepts]. So if the [very] light inside you [your inner self, your heart, your conscience] is darkness, how great and terrible is that darkness!"
And Jesus calls it a "terrible" situation. So great a darkness that your soul cannot even experience God on any level. Not even sorta kinda, not even half-heartedly. It's so dark it's like the vast coldness of outer space. Far from everything. Unreconcilable. Unfeeling. Unloved. Unbelievably sad.
And Jesus was there...crying out!
"My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?"
But not because he was an almost Christian. Not because he was lukewarm in his prayers and studies. Not because he could barely muster up an hour of worship every Sunday morning before he went back to the business of being human. Not because he mingled his spiritual practices with pagan symbols and worship, false teaching, social justice causes, political campaigns, the fanatical wars of zealots, sexual immorality, religious persecution, and judgmentalism. No..he was not guilty of these things. He was the plumb line used to measure the people up against. And he became OUR sin. He took upon himself all OUR almost Christianity. He overcame what we either couldn't or WOULDN'T! Jesus went so deep into that darkness that NO ONE could, and he did it because he loved us. Loved us with God's love. Agape love. Supernatural love that cannot be known unless we have it from God living within us.
No human being has agape love (God's Love) without God. Period!
It must be within us in order to know it. No almost Christian religiosity can achieve it. No pharmacist can create it. No government can mandate it. No shaman can smoke it into being. No pagan god has it in them. No human can love everybody without it. No social justice march can inspire it. Only God's love can produce that love of God in and through you.
So how are you going to know this love without the light of God's mercy, grace, and forgiveness living inside you?
Do you care at all about knowing God's love?
Does the ultimate darkness of spiritual death frighten you?
This is the moment for the most sincere and significant decision you'll ever make. Light or dark? Almost or everything?