Sons of Encouragement

by Francine Rivers

  “Why don’t you stay here in Bethel, Amos?” Hosea looked at his father. “Wouldn’t it be far better for him to live here with us?”

  Beeri nodded.

  Amos fought the temptation. “More convenient, perhaps, but dangerous for you. I have a place to live.”

  “At least stay a few more days.” Jerusha offered him more bread. “Until you’ve recovered from your fall.”

  Amos thanked them.

  After another day, Amos longed to stay. He enjoyed the conversations with Beeri and Hosea that lasted far into the night, always centering on the Lord and His commandments.

  Beeri worked as a scribe, and Hosea studied the scrolls his father kept in the cabinet. Jerusha used what little money they had wisely. Beeri read from the Scriptures locked in the cabinet each evening. Much he knew by memory, and Hosea along with him. “They were taken away once,” Beeri told him, “but I had another copy hidden.”

  Beeri questioned Amos only once. “How is it a prophet of God does not know the Scriptures?”

  “I’ve spent my life in the pastureland with my sheep. Other than a few years when I was a boy, I’ve had little opportunity to sit before a rabbi and learn the Law. What I know is given to me by God.”

  Beeri was quick to apologize. “I did not mean to question your calling, Amos.”

  “I take no offense, but I will say that had I had the opportunity, I doubt I could do as you have done. Some men have minds that can take in knowledge, like you and Hosea. What I know is the land, the night skies, my sheep.”

  Beeri nodded. “That is a great deal in itself, my friend.”

  “The Lord is our shepherd,” Hosea said. “Surely the Lord sent you here to show us the way home.”

  “I’ve usually had to deal with a few wayward sheep.” Amos shook his head. “But never an entire flock such as Israel so determined to find trouble.”

  After six days Amos knew he must leave. Here, in this quiet, devout household, he slept comfortably, ate well, and enjoyed warm fellowship. But, in this small dwelling tucked away in the labyrinth of Bethel, among these hospitable people, he could not hear the Lord’s voice as he could when he stood beneath the stars in an open field.

  “I must go.”

  “Back to Jerusalem?” Hosea leaned forward, eager. “Say the word and I will go with you!”

  “No. I must go out into the hills and return to my place of rest.”

  “But it’s only a cave.”

  “I’ve slept at the entrance of many caves, Hosea. It is a sheepfold and reminds me of the simpler life I had before the Lord called me to come to Bethel.”

  Jerusha looked downcast, Beeri confused. “Surely this is more comfortable than a cave.”

  “Yes, it is.” But distracted by the pleasure of their company, he could not clear his mind long enough to hear the quiet Voice that directed his footsteps and his words.

  Neither Hosea nor his father tried to convince him otherwise. Jerusha filled his scrip with roasted grain and raisins, almonds and barley bread.

  Just before dusk, Hosea walked with him to the city gate. When he started to follow Amos outside, Amos turned.

  “Go back, Hosea. Convince your father to move to Judah. Go to Tekoa and speak with my servant, Eliakim. Tell him I sent you. He will help you find a priest in Jerusalem to help you get settled. I know it will be difficult to start over there, but you have no future here.”

  Hosea nodded. “I will tell my father everything you have said.”

  “May the Lord bless you and protect you. May the Lord smile on you and be gracious to you. . . .” He could not finish.

  Hosea clasped his hand. “May the Lord show you His favor and give you His peace.”

  Amos walked away, shoulders bent and aching. Spare them, Lord. Pluck them out of the destruction to come. Especially young Hosea, who has such a hunger and thirst for You.

  The first night proved the most difficult, for after days with kind friends, loneliness set in and with it a longing to go home to Tekoa and his sheep. The Lord spoke to him in his dreams. When Amos awakened with the dawn, he rose with renewed strength.

  Return to Bethel and speak to My people again.

  He knew what he must do. If it meant another lashing, another beating, or even death, Amos would do what the Lord called him to do.

  Still bruised and sore, he limped down the hill and stood at the gates, waiting for them to open. When they did, he went forward, staff in hand.

  The guard looked far from pleased. “You!”

  Without a word, Amos walked past him and up the street. He stood in the temple square. “The idols you’ve made will disgrace you. They are frauds. They can do nothing for you. The Lord your God is the Creator of everything that exists, and you are His special possession. Come back to Him. Turn away from godless living and sinful pleasures. We should live in this world with self-control, right conduct, and devotion to God!”

  The few who paused to listen quickly changed their minds and passed him by. Guards stood at the temple doorway, sniggering.

  After a week, the temple guards locked him in stocks.

  Issachar came in the night and spoke from behind a pillar. “You should say the things you first said, Amos. Then you wouldn’t be locked up in the stocks. You wouldn’t be a joke to everyone who passes by.”

  Amos lifted his head. Had Issachar come only to taunt? “I speak the Word of the Lord.” Exhausted, every muscle aching, hungry, thirsty, he fought the depression filling him. “You would do well to heed it.”

  After a nervous glance around, Issachar came out and stood before him. “You’ve only to look around Bethel to see how God has blessed us!” He spoke low, half pleading, half frustrated.

  Amos felt Issachar’s tension. He watched him look around and edge back toward the deeper shadows. “Fear God, not men.”

  Issachar leaned close, angry. “I’m here for your own good. Stop speaking against Israel. You insult us!”

  “God gives you an opportunity to repent.”

  “Raca! Fool. You’re going to get yourself killed if you keep on this way.” He disappeared into the night without offering so much as a piece of dried bread or a sip of water.

  “This is your hour, Issachar. The hour of darkness.” Amos wept softly.

  Though he became a joke in Bethel, he did not stop speaking the Word of the Lord after he was released from the stocks.

  Every morning, he came into city. Every day, he spoke.

  No one listened. No one left gifts at the entrance of his cave anymore. His only regret over that was not having anything to offer the poor he saw each time he entered the city, the men whose robes and sandals had been stripped from them as collateral for debts they would never be able to pay. Amos writhed inwardly over the mercilessness of the rich. He could only offer encouragement to the poor whose outer garments had not been returned when the night chill set in. “The Lord hears your prayers.” Even they would not listen to him.

  He saw the widow in the marketplace again. She saw him as well and turned her back to him, ordering her hungry children to do the same.

  No one listened to him anymore. Those who had so relished the first prophecies turned deaf ears to anything said against Israel.

  Lord, when they see me on the street, they turn the other way. I am ignored as if I were dead!

  For six months, he stood waiting at the gates in the morning and departed just before they were shut at night. Day after day, Amos preached the Word of the Lord and day after day, he suffered mockery and disdain. The neophyte priests gloated while Amaziah watched balefully from a high temple window.

  Even as he cried out the truth, people walked up the steps and into the temple of Bethel, day by day sealing their fate with their indifference toward the Lord. Life and death were before them.

  And they continued to embrace death with foolish abandon.

  “Listen to the message that the Lord has spoken!”

  “He’s back again,” people muttered.
/>   “Who is he?” visitors to the city asked.

  “Just a self-proclaimed prophet. He never says anything good.”

  “He just harps on and on about our sins.”

  “Don’t pay any attention. He’s mad.”

  Someone bumped Amos. “Go back to your sheep!”

  Another bumped, harder this time, almost knocking him from his feet. “We’re not a bunch of sheep you can herd.”

  Another shoved him. No one made an effort to stop them.

  Amos raised his staff. “Listen, O Israel. You have sinned against the Lord your God!”

  The youths backed off, laughing and cursing him.

  “Why don’t you shut up!” someone shouted. “We spend more time worshiping the Lord than you do! All you do is talk and talk.”

  Others took up the cry. “He talks and talks.”

  Others laughed. “And nothing happens.”

  Amos looked at his tormentors. “Can two people walk together without agreeing on the direction? Does a lion ever roar in a thicket without first finding a victim? Does a young lion growl in its den without first catching its prey? Does a bird ever get caught in a trap that has no bait? Does a trap spring shut when there’s nothing to catch? When the ram’s horn blows a warning, shouldn’t the people be alarmed?”

  “And I suppose you’re the trumpet?”

  Men and women laughed. “Listen to him trumpet doom!”

  Amos kept on. “Does disaster come to a city unless the Lord has planned it?”

  “What disaster, Prophet? Where?”

  “Just ignore him. He doesn’t know what he’s talking about.”

  People walked away.

  Amos raised his voice. “Indeed, the Sovereign Lord never does anything until He reveals His plans to His servants the prophets. The lion has roared—”

  “Sounds more like a mewing kitten to me!”

  More laughter.

  “So who isn’t frightened? The Sovereign Lord has spoken—so who can refuse to proclaim His message?”

  “Go back to your cave in the hills!”

  “No wonder he speaks of lions and birds. He lives like an animal.”

  Amos paced on the temple steps. “Announce this to the leaders of Philistia and to the great ones of Egypt: ‘Take your seats now on the hills around Samaria, and witness the chaos and oppression in Israel.’”

  “You said Philistia was to be destroyed! Have you changed your mind?”

  “False prophet!”

  “He makes no sense.”

  “‘Therefore,’ says the Sovereign Lord, ‘an enemy is coming! He will surround them and shatter their defenses!’” Amos shouted, his throat raw from speaking. “Then he will plunder all their fortresses.” Filled with the Spirit of the Lord, Amos strode up a few steps, standing below the entrance to the temple of Bethel. “This is what the Lord says: ‘A shepherd who tries to rescue a sheep from a lion’s mouth will recover only two legs or a piece of an ear.’ So it will be when the Israelites in Samaria are rescued—” Amos’s voice caught—“with only a broken bed and a tattered pillow.”

  Tears ran down his cheeks. “‘Now listen to this, and announce it throughout all Israel,’ says the Lord, the Lord God of Heaven’s Armies. ‘On the very day I punish Israel for its sins, I will destroy the pagan altars at Bethel. The horns of the altar will be cut off and fall to the ground.’”

  The ground beneath Amos trembled.

  “Did you feel that?” someone spoke in alarm.

  Amos’s lungs filled. Fire and strength poured through his body. “And I will destroy the beautiful homes of the wealthy—their winter mansions and their summer houses, too—all their palaces filled with ivory—” Amos roared like a lion—“says the Lord!”

  Another tremor, longer this time.

  People looked at one another. “What’s happening?”

  The ground rolled; the earth quaked.

  Some cried out. Others screamed.

  A low rumble sounded from the depths of the earth. The giant stones of the temple grated against each other. People poured outside, shrieking with terror. They covered their heads. A section of the portico fell with a mighty crash, shattering stone in all directions. People fled down the steps. Some tripped and fell, tumbling, taking others down with them. A dozen disappeared beneath the falling wall of a temple brothel. Broken lamps spread ignited oil that fed on the expensive Babylonian draperies, and smoke billowed from summer houses.

  People knocked one another down in their panic. A woman in her finery lay trampled at the base of the temple steps.

  Bumped and jostled by the fleeing crowd, Amos fought to maintain his balance.

  Oh, God, don’t let it be too late. Have mercy upon them! Have mercy. . . .

  Amos saw a mother and child trampled on the street. By the time he reached them, they were dead.

  Surrounded by screams of terror, Amos braced himself and raised his staff. “Repent before it’s too late!” Dust billowed around him. “Repent!”

  The din of chaos and terror swallowed his voice.

  FIVE

  Even when the earthquake ended, dust continued to billow from collapsing buildings and portions of the city wall. The screaming subsided, and people moved around in shock, climbing over the debris-filled streets as they called for loved ones. Many were trapped inside buildings.

  Every few hours, the earth trembled again, with less violence than before. But with each aftershock, the people’s fear rose. Some panicked and fled the city, leaving the helpless to cry pitifully for help. Others worked frantically to uncover family members. Many died, crushed beneath their ashlar houses.

  Amos stayed to help. “There’s another over here!” He lifted stones carefully so that he wouldn’t cause others to fall inward on the moaning person beneath the pile.

  “Amos . . .” A soft groan came from beneath the rubble, a bloody hand extended.

  Amos worked quickly, carefully, and uncovered Issachar.

  “Amos . . .” He grasped Amos’s hand tightly. His mouth moved, but no words came. His eyes pleaded as he coughed. Blood trickled from the corner of his mouth. His hand gripped tighter, eyes filled with fear. He choked.

  Amos stayed with him until his struggle ended. Then he rose to help others. “Here! There’s another here!”

  People scrambled over fallen stones. Some came to help. Others used the confusion to steal whatever they could grab.

  “Stop, thief! Stop him! He’s stealing from my shop!”

  A young man raced down the street, leaping over rubble as a goldsmith cried for help. Amos ignored the thief as he lifted another stone. A naked prostitute stared up at him with dead eyes. The man who had shared her bed had been crushed beneath a wall.

  “Help me. . . .” A weak voice came from farther back, inside the tumbled structure.

  A hand protruded from a narrow hole, fingers moving as though to seek the light. “Help me, please.” A woman’s broken voice.

  Amos took her hand. “I’m here.” Her fingers tightened as she sobbed. After removing several stones and fallen timbers, he reached her. He grabbed a Babylonian drapery to cover her. She cried out in pain as he lifted her and carried her over the rubble. Placing her gently on the stones of the courtyard, he left her among other wounded.

  A priest appeared at the top of the temple steps, his vestments dust covered. He scrambled over the fallen stones and made his way down the steps. When he reached the bottom, he looked at Amos, face ashen with shock. “Did you do this to us, Prophet?”

  “Am I God that I can make the world tremble?”

  “The horns of the altar are broken! And the golden calf . . .”

  Amos felt exultant. “What? You mean it couldn’t run away and save itself?”

  “Blasphemy!”

  “Look around you, Priest. Look and be warned! If you set up that golden calf again, worse will befall the people. You will be the goat that leads them to slaughter!”

  Another aftershock rattled the doors of
the temple, and the priest’s eyes went wide with fear. Dodging falling stones, he stumbled away, joining another holy man who had managed to run from the temple with the first wave of terrified worshipers, and now sat bereft and confused. Watching Amos, they leaned close and talked.

  Amaziah came out of the temple. Clearly shaken, he stared at Amos.

  “Come and help your people!” Amos shouted, but the old man ducked inside again.

  Night began to fall. Dozens of people still needed help. Amos worked through the night, resting when he could not go on. When he could do no more, he made his way to the city gate that stood open, damaged.

  Guards shouted orders. “Heave! Again! Heave!” Rock tumbled.

  Bodies had been laid out in a line outside the walls, awaiting burial.

  This is not the vision I saw, Lord. This was not devastation. This was only a sound shaking, a warning to listen.

  He overheard two merchants. “Jerusalem is worse off than we are.”

  Jerusalem! Horrified, Amos ran down the road. Had Bani and Ahiam survived? What of their wives and children?

  Stumbling, he stopped to pull the hem of his long robe up between his knees and tuck it securely into his belt. His fear had overtaken his reason. He couldn’t run all the way to Jerusalem. Setting off again at a brisk walk, he tried to restrain his panic.

  Nearly three hours later, he reached the top of a hill and leaned on his staff to catch his breath, seeing Jerusalem in the distance. Solomon’s Temple caught the sunlight and shone brilliant white and gold. Amos gave a cry of relief.

  Tents dotted the hillsides, sheltering the hundreds who had left the city until the aftershocks subsided. Everywhere was the din of human voices as people searched for friends and family members. Donkeys brayed. Camels bellowed.

  Merchants lined the road to Jerusalem with their booths.

  “Tents of the finest goatskin!”

  “Water jars!”

  “Oil lamps!”

  “Blankets.”

  Supplies had been brought from other towns and were being dispensed by soldiers keeping order.