“YET YOU DID NOT RETURN TO ME!”

Amos 4:6-13                                 (ESV)

“6 "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. 

7 "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; 

8 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. 

9 "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. 

10 "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. 

11 "I overthrew some of you, as when GOD overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah, and you were as a brand plucked out of the burning; “YET YOU DID NOT RETURN TO ME”," declares the LORD. 

12 "Therefore thus I will do to you, O Israel; because I will do this to you, prepare to meet your GOD, O Israel!" 

13 For behold, HE WHO forms the mountains and creates the wind, and declares to man what is his thought, who makes the morning darkness, and treads on the heights of the earth- the LORD, the GOD of hosts, is HIS NAME!”

How many times do we get a MESSAGE from GOD and we blow it off as a coincidence or happenstance?  Sometimes GOD speaks to us in ways that we have to listen carefully to determine what HE is saying.  The passage of Scripture above isn’t one of those times!  The central MESSAGE in this Scripture is “YET YOU DID NOT RETURN TO ME”!  

The CHURCH, our nation, and the entire world has had these writings from GOD for almost three thousand years.  It was written in 760 and 753 B.C., yet how many people ignore WORDS that our CREATOR gave to us through the prophet Amos?  These WORDS are straightforward and plain spoken, yet most are TOO BUSY today to hear what GOD is saying to us.  

“YET YOU DID NOT RETURN TO ME” could be a warning to the CHURCH that GOD will not always be as patient as HE has in the past.  Five times in these eight verses we are told “YET YOU DID NOT RETURN TO ME”!  It is not coincidence!  I’m afraid that we have CONFORMED to the priorities of “this world” instead of allowing ourselves to be TRANSFORMED?  

When a few people that surround us die from an illness, the authorities tell us what “they think” we should be doing to prevent the sickness from affecting us.  People, WAKE UP, the sickness of SIN is devastating “this world” and GOD is saying “YET YOU DID NOT RETURN TO ME”!!!  When we realize that the WAGES (paycheck for what is owed to us) OF SIN IS DEATH and the ONLY way to escape the certain punishment is through Believing in JESUS CHRIST!  It appears that HE will once again have to say “YET YOU DID NOT RETURN TO ME”!  Will you hear these words???