Amos 4:6-11

You have not returned to God -- Amos 4:6-11: Five times the Lord described efforts He had made to rescue Israel from sin. But each time He said, "Yet you did not return to me," or "still you rejected me." God punished the people with a shortage of food. The expression "cleanness of teeth" is a figurative designation of the result of famine. But still the people went on with their rejection of God. God said, "Three months before harvest, I kept back the rain. Sometimes I would let it fall on one town or field but not on another, and pastures dried up." The Creator has the ability to control the rain. People from two or three towns would go to a town that had water but it was still not enough to satisfy their need. In spite of all of this the people did not return to the Lord. God wanted to bring His people to repentance but His chastisements had no effect on them.

God had said, "But it shall come to pass, if thou wilt not hearken unto the voice of the LORD thy God, to observe to do all his commandments and his statutes which I command thee this day; that all these curses shall come upon thee, and overtake thee: Cursed shalt thou be in the city, and cursed shalt thou be in the field. Cursed shall be thy basket and thy store." (Deuteronomy 28:15-17) They now know that God meant what He said. He dried up their grain fields, gardens and vineyards. He sent locusts that ate their fig trees and olive orchards, but even then they rejected the Lord.

God sent plagues upon them, their young men were killed in battle, their horses were stolen and their camp was made to stink with dead bodies. Yet, the Lord still had to declare, "They did not return unto Me." God overthrew some of them as He had done to Sodom and Gomorrah. Others were like a burning stick that God rescued from the fire. Even then they continued to reject Him. His people were unfaithful but God continued to love them. However, He could not overlook their sins.