The Warning of a Famine

In this blog, we explore a timeless truth: sin isn’t confined to our past, present, or future—it remains a spiritual reality that shapes every generation. Drawing from the book of Amos, we uncover the prophet’s urgent warning about what happens when people drift from God’s truth. For nearly 2,000 years, the world experienced a famine of Scriptural teaching, and Amos’ message echoes through that silence: rejecting God’s Word carries real and lasting consequences.

Together, we examine how taking a “preference-based” approach to faith leads to instability—like building life on sinking sand. It produces generations hungry for truth but unable to find it. Yet the hope of Amos’ message remains: restoration begins with honest acknowledgment, genuine repentance, and a turning away from sin.

Keep reading along as we journey through Scripture, confront the realities of spiritual famine, and discover the path back to solid ground.

There is a famine in our land today—not a famine of preference, presumption, or pity, but a famine of truth.

Let’s be honest with ourselves for a moment:

👉Have you ever lied?
👉Have you ever stolen?
👉Have you ever entertained a sinful thought?
👉Have you ever failed to do the good you knew you should have done?

Notice the words “done,” “should have,” “in the past.”

We like to talk about sin as if it only exists back there—behind us—something we’ve “moved on” from.

“Oh, that sin is in the past.”
“Oh, that sin? That’s your sin. Their sin. Not mine.”
“It’s not sin to me.”

But the truth is this: sin is sin—past, present, or future. And all sin is against the holy God and righteous Judge of the universe.

Amos 8:11–14 gives a sobering warning:

11 Behold, the days come, saith the Lord GOD, that I will send a famine in the land, not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water, but of hearing the words of the LORD:
12 And they shall wander from sea to sea… to seek the word of the LORD, and shall not find it.
13 In that day shall the fair virgins and young men faint for thirst.
14 They that swear by the sin of Samaria… even they shall fall, and never rise up again.

One commentator calls this “an amazing truth.” "In the land where God was revealed, in the land where his living Word was incarnate, there ensued a famine of scriptural teaching for almost 2,000 years." And in many ways, that famine lingers even today.

• Israel’s sin was rooted in idolatry—the sin of Samaria.
• Their sin was unredeemed, because it was unrepented.
• Their sin was rejection of God’s truth.
• They sinned, they fell, and they did not rise.

Look again at verse 12:

They shall run to and fro to seek the word of the LORD, and shall not find it.

Why?
Because there is a famine in the land.

I once had a dear preacher friend who reduced biblical conviction to preference—he said he preferred the King James Bible. But preference will not hold the line for the next generation. Preference cannot uphold truth. Preference produces a generation that runs to and fro, looking for truth but unable to find it.

Why?
Because preference is sinking sand.
Because unconfessed, unrepented sin blinds the heart.
Because a famine of hearing the Word arises when conviction is replaced by convenience.

As long as we deny our sin and refuse repentance, the famine will deepen. But when we return to God’s truth—fully, humbly, without preference or excuses—He restores, He revives, and He ends the famine.