Amos 3:2 You only have I known of all the families of the earth: therefore I will punish you for all your iniquities.
There are two kinds of preacher’s kids in this world. I know that because I am a preacher’s son, a preacher’s grandson, and a preacher’s great grandson. The bottom line is that I know that there are two kinds of preacher’s kids! There are the preacher’s kids who are, let’s just say it, skunks. They feel entitled. They think, “Hey, I’m the preacher’s kid. I can get away with it.” These poor examples have led to the fallacy that the preacher’s kids are the worst. I am here to say that a preacher’s children do not have to be the worst! An assumption is pure nonsense, but I know that, like anyone, preacher’s children can be bad news.
Then there are the preacher’s kids who don’t have a complex but who realize what they do is important because it reflects upon their parents. When I was young, there were times that I said, “Hey, Dad, the pastor’s kids are doing that.” My dad would say, “Yeah, but you are not the pastor’s kid, you are my kid.” In other words, whether you are a preacher’s kid or not, is immaterial. What is important is whether you see your position as a responsibility and privilege or if you see it as an entitlement.
The people of Israel saw their position before God, who was not just their father but the Sovereign of their country, as an entitlement and not as a responsibility. In Amos 3 the prophet Amos says, “Hear this word that the LORD hath spoken against you, O children of Israel, against the whole family which I brought up from the land of Egypt, saying, You only have I known of all the families of the earth: therefore I will punish you for all your iniquities.”
God is saying to them, “I brought you out of Egypt. You should be thankful, and not feel entitled. You shouldn’t take your freedom as entitlement to do whatever you want because you are God’s special people. You should accept your position in gratitude and know that it is a blessing from God. You are the only family out of all the families of the earth that I have known, and because of that I am going to punish your iniquities.”
There is a difference between the way I would respond to someone breaking into my home and the way I would respond to a child who was living in disobedience and therefore a danger to himself. In one case, I would fight to the death to defend, and in the other case, I would lovingly discipline. Both, as it turns out, are because of love for my own. God is no different. In fact, God is far greater. God chastens His own precisely because He loves them.
Now I don’t know what your circumstances in life are today, but I do know that if you belong to God, it is not a cause for you to do whatever you want to do. It is a cause for gratitude. In Hebrew 12 we are reminded that we have “forgotten the exhortation which speaketh unto you as unto children, My son, despise not the chastening of the Lord, nor faint when thou art rebuked of him: for whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth.”
Not every calamity is a result of God’s judgment, but if some calamity is God’s judgment, realize that God chastens His own precisely because He loves them.