Fading Summer Fruit of Accountability

Amos 8:1-14 

1 Thus the Lord GOD showed me:
Behold, a basket of summer fruit.
2 And He said, "Amos, what do you see?"
So I said, "A basket of summer fruit."

Then the LORD said to me:
"The end has come upon My people Israel;
I will not pass by them anymore.

3 And the songs of the temple
Shall be wailing in that day,"
Says the Lord GOD—
"Many dead bodies everywhere,
They shall be thrown out in silence."

4 Hear this, you who swallow up the needy,
And make the poor of the land fail,
5 Saying:

"When will the New Moon be past,
That we may sell grain?
And the Sabbath,
That we may trade wheat?
Making the ephah small and the shekel large,
Falsifying the scales by deceit,
6 That we may buy the poor for silver,
And the needy for a pair of sandals—
Even sell the bad wheat?"

7 The LORD has sworn by the pride of Jacob:
"Surely I will never forget any of their works.

8 Shall the land not tremble for this,
And everyone mourn who dwells in it?
All of it shall swell like the River,
Heave and subside
Like the River of Egypt.

9 "And it shall come to pass in that day," says the Lord GOD,
"That I will make the sun go down at noon,
And I will darken the earth in broad daylight;
10 I will turn your feasts into mourning,
And all your songs into lamentation;
I will bring sackcloth on every waist,
And baldness on every head;
I will make it like mourning for an only son,
And its end like a bitter day.

11 "Behold, the days are coming," says the Lord GOD,
"That I will send a famine on the land,
Not a famine of bread,
Nor a thirst for water,
But of hearing the words of the LORD.

12 They shall wander from sea to sea,
And from north to east;
They shall run to and fro, seeking the word of the LORD,
But shall not find it.

13 "In that day the fair virgins
And strong young men
Shall faint from thirst.

14 Those who swear by the sin of Samaria,
Who say,
'As your god lives, O Dan!'
And, 'As the way of Beersheba lives!'
They shall fall and never rise again."

Amos was given a vision of a basket of summer fruit as a symbol of the end of Israel’s fruitless season in their rebellious sins of idolatry and immortality as they forsook the LORD.  They complained against the celebration of the Sabbath and festivals honoring God that restricted their business.  Their business itself took advantage of others, especially the poor, whom they had been commanded to help (Leviticus 25:35-36) and not harm in this way.  God therefore pronounced judgment on them and promised that their empty songs in the temple would be turned to sorrowful wailing of suffering and loss for their unrepentant sins.  The picture of dead bodies silently being tossed out of there must have made a strong impact on the hearers as they heard these words from Amos.  Suffering and death as consequences were given to cause them to turn back to God in repentance and not for their complete destruction, however.  That was God’s tough love to correct His people and maintain His glory in their sight above all.  God did not overlook their prideful sin, but held them accountable because of His righteousness while offering grace and mercy through their sincere repentance if evidenced by true change of the direction of their lives.  He wanted them to tremble in fear of their sin and the consequences to turn them around.  In a literal sense for the time, verses 9-10 pointed to a time of dark despair and want for hearing God’s word as in Micah 3:6-7, but also in a prophetic sense God was talking of the suffering of Christ on the cross in the darkness as they refused to hear the living Word of God come to them after they had ignored the prophets before Him.  Amos spoke of this darkness in the middle of the day as recorded later in Mark 15:33 as a mourning for an only son as that of God’s Son which left a taste of bitterness for putting Him to death as a sacrifice for their sins.  This was because the people of God had stopped listening to His words as the time between the Old and New Testament periods made evident and was proven when Christ arrived and was not heard.  The Pharisees and Scribes wandered back and forth looking for answers long forgotten and buried in their selective interpretations and could not find the answers until God Himself came and opened their ears to hear His word.  The idolaters of Amos’s time would utterly fail and fall away, but without the pursuit of the knowledge of God in His word and the ability given by Him for them to truly comprehend it, they remained in darkness until the light would shine upon them (Isaiah 60:1-2, Matthew 4:16, John 1:4-5, 7-9, 2 Corinthians 4:6) to turn them to Him at last.  That is the gospel hope foreshadowed here in the face of the picture of the fading fruit of a failed reliance on God’s goodness in spite of unrepentant sin which brought judgment as accountability for sin.  Yes, the wages earned by sin are death in judgment, but the grace of God in the light of the Word who is Jesus Christ atones completely and effectively in mercy for all who God calls to Himself.  That is the hope for Jew and Gentile alike to seek the word of the LORD and find it given to them!  Amos used a picture of fading summer fruit of accountability to point to the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Word and Light of God.