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What the Bible says about Famine, Human Culpability in
(From Forerunner Commentary)

Amos 4:6-12

Behaviors have consequences. Actions have reactions. Causes have effects. This is a law of nature that many moderns have sadly forgotten, or in their hubris believe that they can mitigate.

We perhaps see this most starkly in the world of health. A young man in his rebellion lives a wild life, drinking, carousing, and sleeping with multiple women throughout his college years. Soon, he finds he has contracted a venereal disease. "No problem," he thinks. "I can just go down to the clinic, and the doctor will prescribe something to cure me." He thinks he has just defeated cause and effect, but in reality, he has just treated a symptom. The compound effects of his earlier lifestyle may not reveal themselves for years—in fact, they may ruin his entire life!

Because of this kind of rationalization and short-sightedness, God works on a far larger canvas when it comes to teaching humanity lessons, and sometimes even the destruction of whole nations and millions of people fail to impress the truth on some. We can see this in His dealings with Israel and Judah over 2,500 years ago. He called Assyria to invade Israel several times, carting off hundreds of thousands of slaves, and they still did not make the connection between their sinfulness, particularly their idolatry, and their destruction (II Kings 17:5-23). A similar series of events befell Judah just over a hundred years later.

Through Amos, God shows us that He uses natural disasters to show His displeasure (Amos 4:6-13). These "acts of God" occur on a scale so immense that man's activities have little or no effect on their outcomes. Who can stop the earth from shaking? Who can hold back the howling wind and driving rains? Who can "prime the pump" to make the rain fall and break a drought? Who can plug the magma vents of the earth? Man is essentially powerless against the awesome forces of nature, and if we believe that God is nature's Creator, we should ask ourselves why such things occur.

Our current drought affects upwards of 40% of the nation, and the problem is not just lack of rain anymore. Drought conditions cause other "natural" consequences. Earlier this summer, we witnessed one of the most spectacular effects of extended dry weather: forest fires. As the drought continues, however, new problems begin to crop up.

As a result of the parched conditions, beetles are boring through forests, invading farmlands and chomping on crops, making an already bad season worse. This includes the attacks of bark beetles, grasshoppers, Mormon crickets, and disease-carrying mosquitoes. On the grasshopper front alone, some infestations are the worst since the Great Depression, costing millions of dollars.

In addition, drought drives wild critters into the suburbs. We occasionally hear of bears wandering down from the mountains into populated areas, but this "invasion" is far more diverse, including snakes, bighorn sheep, ducks, and rats as well. Experts believe scarce water and the resulting food shortage is forcing these animals to extend their range. Nationally, out-of-bounds wild animals cause an average $22 billion in damage each year, drought or not.

We have still not encountered what may be the worse result of drought: famine. However, it is prophesied for the end time. It is the third seal of Revelation 6:5-6, interpreted by Jesus in Matthew 24:7. Even a wealthy and productive nation like the United States can be brought to its knees by famine—and our vaunted pull-yourself-up-by-your-bootstraps mentality could do nothing to stop it. And that is where God wants this nation—on its knees, but in repentant prayer, not despair.

Richard T. Ritenbaugh
Bugs and Beasts

Revelation 6:5-6

Clearly, this third seal pictures famine stalking the land (see Matthew 24:7; Luke 21:11). Biblically, the color black—unlike our modern conception of it as the color of evil, as opposed to white—signifies mourning and ill health as a result of scarcity (see Jeremiah 14:2; Lamentations 5:10; Nahum 2:10; all of which, in Hebrew, describe people's expressions, skins, or faces as "black" due to want). This is in keeping with another use of black or darkness in Scripture: as a sign of God's judgment for sin (Zephaniah 1:15; Joel 2:2).

The pair of scales, of course, suggests similar things, adding an economic element, as grains or other foods would often be weighed for sale. Scales could also be used, as is likely intended in the third seal, to ration food during a time of scarcity. In the vision, a denarius represents a laborer's daily wage, and a quart of grain equals a person's daily nutritional requirement. The third horseman, then, portrays a scenario of hunger and suffering, when the powers that be tightly control the meting out of staple foods at highly inflated prices.

Finally, there is the curious phrase, "do not harm the oil and the wine." Commentators have been debating the meaning of this command for centuries. It is clearly spoken by God, sitting among the four living creatures, and just as He sets the famine prices of grain, He also decrees that oil and wine be spared any harm. How are we to understand this?

Olive oil and wine are not luxury items, as many take them to be; in the Mediterranean world, they are important supporting elements of the common diet (see Deuteronomy 7:13; Hosea 2:8; Haggai 1:11; etc.). However, while they provide supplementary nutrition, people cannot subsist on them alone. Thus, they are secondary food items, and in the prophecy, they remain plentiful. This leads to two possible conclusions:

1. God is limiting the severity of famines, as "the end is not yet" (Matthew 24:6) and "these are the beginning of sorrows" (verse 8); or more likely,

2. He is indicating a measure of disparity and irregularity in these famines. Some foods will be scarce, while others are abundant. Some people will be sorely affected, while others will hardly suffer. Some areas will be hit hard, while others feel little impact.

This second conclusion suggests human involvement, a wild card in every circumstance, which would fit well with the first two seals. Unlike simple natural disasters, religious deceptions and wars require the decisions and actions of people to bring them about. God hints at a human element in all these disasters, including famine, that occur down through the centuries to remind us of our culpability in them. When man governs without the guidance of God, catastrophe and destruction are not far behind.

Richard T. Ritenbaugh
Scarcity Amid Plenty


 




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