Let's use a more modern-day example to illustrate the point we are trying to make. Suppose a person is still living in a fairly primitive society in 2023, without electricity and without the internet and without easy access to the Scriptures. Perhaps the Scriptures haven't yet been translated into this person's language or the person hasn't been taught to read in the first place. But someone has told them the basic facts of the gospel and they know very little else at this time. The Lord certainly doesn't expect as much of them as He expects of me, for example, who was brought up in church and who has free and easy access to the Scriptures anytime I please, either by reading it in a Bible or online or by listening to it on the radio or on TV or by attending church services. The Lord expects far more of me than He expects from someone who scarcely knows more than, "Jesus loves me."
Earlier in the book of Amos we found the Lord speaking words of judgment against six pagan nations in the same region of the world where the northern kingdom of Israel and the southern kingdom of Judah were located. The Lord began His prophecies with three nations that had been idolatrous for many centuries. Then He moved on to prophecies against three nations that were closely related to the tribes of Israel and who had knowledge of Him from the not-so-distant past. Then He moved on to speaking prophecies against Judah and Israel. You may recall me saying He was listing the nations mentioned in the book of Amos in the order of bad, worse, and worst as far as how well each of these nations was walking in the light they had been given. The nations that had been idolatrous for the longest amount of time were mentioned first (they were the ones I called "bad") because the current generation had received little to no education about the Lord. The next three (the ones I referred to as "worse") once knew a great deal about the Lord and still had enough knowledge about Him to realize they weren't living according to His laws and commandments. Then He got down to Judah and Israel (who had done the "worst" job of walking according to the light they had been given) because of all the people in the world they should have loved Him the most and should have wanted to honor Him the most.
This is why the Lord begins His speech in Chapter 3 by reminding the people of Israel and Judah of the familial relationship He established with them long ago. "Hear this word, people of Israel, the word the Lord has spoken against you---against the whole family I brought out of Egypt:" (Amos 3:1a) The Lord called these people by His own name. Through His own power He brought them out of Egypt with many great signs and wonders. Through His own power He provided for them in the wilderness for forty years. Through His own power He removed the ancient nations from the land of Canaan and established the nation of Israel in their place. The use of the word "family" here is literal in the sense that He brought all the descendants of Jacob out of Egypt, but the use of the word also reflects the way He considers them His children. Out of all the nations and tribes inhabiting the world at that time, only the people of Israel had this distinction, which the Lord points out below.
"You only have I chosen of all the families of the earth; therefore I will punish you for all your sins." (Amos 3:2) Their sins against the Lord were more reprehensible than the sins of someone who had never heard of the Lord. Their sins were less excusable than the sins of someone who might have heard of the God of Israel but who knew absolutely nothing about His character or about what He considered to be righteous living. Although the Apostle Paul correctly stated that even the heathen who has never heard of God has no excuse for not believing that there is a God (Romans 1:18-20) because the creation itself testifies to the fact that there must be a Creator, a person raised up in idolatry does not know much more than that someone must have created everything that exists. And that person may not have access to anyone who isn't an idolater and who can tell them anything reliable about the Lord. Certainly the Lord doesn't expect that person to know how to keep from sinning against Him. They might be able to intuitively know that certain things are wrong (such as murder or stealing) but there are many things they cannot know. By contrast, the descendants of Jacob definitely knew the Lord's laws and commandments. And because they knew, they were accountable for deliberately disobeying Him.
We've all sinned against the Lord. We sinned against Him before we knew Him and we've sinned against Him since we've made Him the Lord of our lives. Some of our sins haven't been intentional and some of them have been deliberate. As soon as we become aware that we've sinned, whether it was unintentionally or intentionally, we are welcome to come freely to the Lord and confess our sins and receive forgiveness from Him. So we must keep in mind that although the Lord is charging Judah and Israel with sinning against Him, and although He's pronouncing judgments that are coming as a result of those sins, He would have relented if they would have repented. He didn't call prophets to speak to the people because He had no intention of hearing prayers of repentance; He called prophets to speak to them to confront them with their sins and give them an opportunity to acknowledge and repent of those sins. Anytime the Lord tells any of us that there's something in our lives that needs cleaning up, the best thing we can do is repent of it and turn away from it immediately. If we do not, the Lord has no choice but to take whatever corrective action is appropriate for whatever we're doing. He does this because He loves us. He would rather cause us to undergo some unpleasant discipline for a time than for us to keep sinning and ruin our lives.
The Lord gave Amos a message to speak to the people not because He wants to destroy them but because He wants them to get back on track. I'm sure there probably were people who took His message to heart but, sadly, the majority didn't. This is why, when we did our study of the kings, the northern kingdom of Israel eventually fell to Assyria and the southern kingdom of Judah eventually fell to the Neo-Babylonian Empire. But the Lord did not thoroughly destroy them; He used those defeats as a corrective measure. There is still a nation called Israel in the world today. And we have never again seen the people of Israel falling into idolatry since the time of the kings. The Lord doesn't want to discipline any of us but He's a loving and responsible Father who must step in to correct us when needed. It's better to receive correction and get back on the right path than to keep going down the wrong path and fall off a cliff.
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