Amos 3:3 asks if two can walk together if they are not in agreement. This is the opening question of a series of seven rhetorical questions designed to confirm that nothing happens without God’s control. What do these seven rhetorical questions mean? They mean that when God acts, there should be no surprise. Before He acts in judgment, He gives much warning.
Amos 7:7-9 deals with the prophet seeing God using a plumb line. This is the third of five visions and one that deeply troubled the servant. A plumb line is a carpenter’s tool used to measure how straight a wall is. A wall must be taken down and rebuilt if it is too far off. The Lord is not measuring a wall, but He is measuring Israel. How far off from His Laws had Israel come?
Back in Genesis, God gave Israel the choice to live however they wanted. If they obeyed God, they would receive His blessing. If they went their way and disobeyed God, they would receive the fruit of that decision. The plumb line shows how far Israel had gone astray. I believe God still measures this world with that same plumb line.
Knowing the answer to this vision, Amos knew that the time for Israel to face the consequences of their choices had arrived. Genesis 28-30 was evident. The only God they were to worship was the Lord. When measured, they were completely out of plumb, and now the sword of judgment was about to fall.
Because Amos was faithful in preaching the truth, his message needed to be received. With this third vision, Amos did not intercede. Israel had gone too far away from God’s word. As with much of a prophet’s message, it was not heard or heeded. This message God sent to the northern tribes of Israel is still valid today, but it’s only now for more than the ten tribes of the north. The world needs to understand this vision and its meaning.
The United States a Divided Nation
The United States of America is a divided nation. The divide we see in our nation today has roots going back more than fifty years. To understand the depth of this divide, we need to go back to 1968, then 1971, and finally to 1984.
1971 saw the creation of Operation PUSH, which stood for People United to Save Humanity. This movement’s concept and direction were originally created by Fred Hampton in 1968, who at the time was the leader of the Chicago Black Panthers. Jesse Jackson was an active organizer of Operation PUSH and later formed the Rainbow Coalition.
Both Operation PUSH and the National Rainbow Coalition were Chicago-based nonprofits. Jesse Jackson’s speech at the 1984 Democratic National Convention in San Francisco detailed the structure of the Rainbow Coalition.
- It advocated universal health care
- It proclaimed a war on drugs
- It promoted negotiations between the Palestinians and Israelis
- It fought for 1% student loans
- It called for employee rights and livable wages
- It also promoted gender equality
These issues date back over fifty years, and they are all problems that need to be addressed. It is not the issues that have divided our nation; it is how we have approached dealing with them that has divided us.
Steve Philips, the youngest person ever elected to public office in San Francisco, became the man behind the democratic scenes. His book, Brown Is the New White: How the Demographic Revolution Has Created a New American Majority, proposed a new road map for taking back our country. Philips’ book was published in 2018, but its thesis goes back to the 1960’s. Philips was credited with finding a young senator from Chicago, a community activist named Barak Obama, and launching his political career to the White House.
Social Injustices, Idolatry, and Failure to Uphold God’s Law
In the book of Amos, God first brings judgment on Israel’s neighbors. Then, God condemns Israel for their social injustices, idolatry, and failure to uphold God’s law. Israel was judged because of the way they had abandoned God and sought after foreign nations. They sought to align themselves with nations that did not worship the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
In the day of Amos, the foreign threat came from Assyria. In 2024, and going back a few administrations, our threat comes from China. Like the leaders of Israel in Amos’ day, our leadership is aligning with foreign nations, particularly China, a nation that does not honor or worship the God of Scripture.
For example, why was Mark Kelly a possible VP candidate? Do you know where he met his wife, the former congresswoman Gabby Giffords? They met in 2003 in China. As a United States astronaut, Mark promoted vitamins made and sold by a Chinese company. It was reported that Shaklee Vitamins paid Kelly $50,000 to be their spokesman. In 2020, the Huffington Post reported that while Gabrielle Giffords was serving in the US House of Representatives, her financial disclosures show Kelly, from 2011 to 2016, was paid $50,000 yearly for Shaklee speeches.
For decades, our political and business leaders, from Henry Kissinger to Bill Gates, have all locked arms with China. Canada’s leader, Justin Trudeau, has publicly said that he believes the world should be modeled after China. We see how that relationship is going, especially after the recent G20 confrontation and China’s leader’s public rebuke of Trudeau. There is nothing new here. We can learn a lot from the warning of the Book of Amos!
Klaus Schwab and China’s Master Plan for Humanity
Klaus Schwab, the leader of the World Economic Forum, has publicly said the world should follow China’s master plan for humanity. What has been the fruit of that? ESG scores, 15-minute cites, sustainable development, and so on.
Our decline as a nation mirrors Israel’s decline in the days of Amos. Amos ministered 150 years after the nations of Israel were divided into two parts: Israel in the north and Judah in the south. God sent Isaiah to Judah, and he sent Amos to Israel. The North and the South were warned and told to repent and get right with God. Both refused to listen, and foreign enemies conquered both.
It’s not an issue that divides us. It’s the replacing of God with reliance on foreign nations, nations that refuse to acknowledge, worship, or obey God and His word, and nations whose policies go directly against God and His word. We have been on this road for decades. It’s time for our leaders and us to stop going in the direction we are and turn back to God before His judgment falls. God’s plumb line clearly shows how far America has gone astray.
