“Can two walk together, except they be agreed?” (Amos 3:3)

Amos was a prophet during the reign of Jeroboam II (son of Joash), who ruled the northern 10 tribes of Israel from 825 to 784 BC (2 Kings 14:23). Some 100 years earlier, Jeroboam I (son of Nebat) led a rebellion against the son of Solomon and started the northern nation of Israel (1 Kings 12). In order to keep his people from returning to Jerusalem, Jeroboam I “made Israel to sin” (1 Kings 12:30; 16:26; etc.) by developing a “new” religion centered on an image of a golden calf, with idol temples in Bethel and Dan (1 Kings 12:28-29).

Those northern tribes never returned to the worship of Jehovah but “sinned against the LORD,” and Israel “feared other gods” (2 Kings 17:7). The list of their sins was long and grievous in God’s sight.

• They “did secretly those things that were not right against the LORD” (2 Kings 17:9).
• Israel set up “images and groves in every high hill” (v. 10).
• They “wrought wicked things to provoke the LORD to anger” (v. 11).
• They “worshipped all the host of heaven” (v. 16).
• They “used divination and enchantments, and sold themselves to do evil in the sight of the LORD, to provoke him to anger” (v. 17).
• They “feared the LORD, and served their own gods” (v. 33).

Amos was commissioned in those dark years to openly confront the nation to “walk” in “agreement” with the God they professed to worship. Hypocrisy is at the core of the judgment and warnings recorded for us in the little book of Amos. We must learn the lessons or suffer the same judgment. HMM III