The Berean - Amos 8: 11-14 NASB

The Berean - Amos 8:11-14 NASB  

(11) “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.” (12) “People will stagger from sea to sea And from the north even to the east; They will go to and fro to seek the word of the LORD, But they will not find {it.} (13) “In that day the beautiful virgins And the young men will faint from thirst. (14) “{As for} those who swear by the guilt of Samaria, Who say, `As your god lives, O Dan,' And, `As the way of Beersheba lives,' They will fall and not rise again.” 

New American Standard Bible

The first victims of this famine are the young. They are more susceptible because their parents failed to provide a solid foundation of truth. The young only know what the older generation has taught them. With anything remotely Christian being banished from public schools and colleges and ridiculed in the media, and with churches increasingly neglecting the Word of God, the youth are being supplied with a very weak or non-existent diet of truth.

God created mankind with a spiritual capacity, and our minds naturally crave something to excite us, fill us, and give us answers. If God’s words are not sustaining the youth of the nation, something else will. Thus, the rap culture has become a religion—a belief system, a way of life—for some. The philosophy of materialism is firmly entrenched in these fertile minds, which are being fed all day yet starved of truth. Eco-religions and nature worship are drawing others off course. Witchcraft and other elements of the occult fill the minds of others. Eastern and New Age beliefs are becoming more mainstream, and we even have the cult of Oprah!

An entire generation is falling for the line that there is no absolute truth, that everyone’s opinion is valid (unless that opinion is biblical), and that the only modern sin is to judge. All of these forms of idolatry are flourishing because God’s words are not being heard, and something else has taken their place.

Amos 8:14 describes those who are so adamantly committed to their idolatry, who are so spiritually sick from malnourishment, that they will “fall and never rise again.”

— David C. Grabbe