A Famine for the Word

Behold, the days are coming, says my Lord, Jehovah,

that I will send a famine on the land,

not a famine of bread or a thirst for water,

but of hearing the words of the Lord.

They will stagger from sea to sea,

and from the north even to the east.  Men will desperately go about,

seeking the word of the Lord, but they will not find it.

Amos 8:11–12

We live in such a time.  Turn on the TV or radio; search on the internet; go to a bookstore.  Where do you hear anything that has truly come from God?  It is very, very rare.  Typically, what we find is human ideas taught as gospel, and God’s people would do better just to turn it all off.

Jesus taught that it is what comes from God that builds up his people and that nothing can prevail against it (Mt. 16:17–18).  It was for good reason that Paul called his revelation from Christ “the word of life”, for it is the only thing that can keep God’s children alive and strong in spirit.  But in the present state of things, God’s children are living on crumbs and are, spiritually speaking, emaciated.

I have heard that when people reach a point of starvation where they are near death, they must be fed small amounts of food and drink in order to recover, even if they crave more.  Even food that is otherwise healthy can kill them if they eat too much of it because their bodies cannot handle it.  So it is now with God’s beloved people.  They have been starved for the word of life for so long that they cannot bear to hear much of it.  May God help us to “discern the body”, lest we overfeed his starving children and do them more harm than good with the good food we have been given.

And pray that He will continue to give us our precious daily bread, the word of life that keeps us spiritually alive and healthy, and that we will always have an appetite for it.