A Famine of God’s Word

The prophet Amos warned the people of God’s coming judgement. The most devastating judgement that he announced is in Amos 8:11-13: “‘Look! The days are coming,’ declares the Lord Yehovah ‘when I will send a famine throughout the land — not a famine of food or a thirst for water — but rather a famine of hearing the words of Yehovah. People…will run back and forth, searching for a message from Yehovah, but they won’t find it.’”

A famine of food hurts the body but a famine of God’s word starves the spirit.

When Jesus was tempted by the devil to turn stones into bread in order to satisfy His hunger, He quoted Deuteronomy 8:3 “man does not live by bread alone, but man lives by everything that proceeds out of the mouth of the Yehovah” (Matthew 4:4). A famine of God’s word is devastating to our spiritual growth and health.

Jesus instructed His disciples in John 6:27, “Do not work for the food which perishes, but for the food which endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give to you.” Jesus modeled this truth in His ministry. Jesus ministered to the Samaritan women while His disciples went to purchase food. When they returned, they encouraged Him to eat. Jesus responded, “I have food to eat that you do not know about…My food is to do the will of Him who sent Me and to accomplish His work” (John 4:32-34).

Studying, practicing and sharing the truth of God’s word is our spiritual nourishment.

David proclaimed, “The sum of your word is truth.” Jesus echoes these words in His prayer for believers in John 17:17, “Sanctify them in the truth; Your word is truth.” Sanctification has two important results. First, it is the process of cleansing believers from the penalty for their sins. Jesus death and resurrection paid in full for the penalty of our sins. “In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins” (1 John 4:10).

Second, it indicates that we have been set apart from a lost world to serve God. We serve Him by being obedient to His commandments and by sharing the Gospel, “the word of truth,” with others (Colossians 1:5).

Jesus spoke the words of God’s message to us (John 12:49) and was the embodiment of those words. The Bible teaches that Jesus was “the word” in human form, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God… And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us, and we saw His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth” (John 1:1, 14). Jesus perfectly lived everything the Bible teaches.

A famine of God’s word, in written words and in the person of Jesus, is the most devastating judgment any people can suffer. Pray that we are never afflicted with this judgement.