Waking up from bed, last Friday morning, I first went to the USCCB app, as I always do, for Catholic readings and reflections of the day. The First Reading from the book of the Prophet Amos 8: 4-6, 9-12, struck me. “This is a prophecy for our generation,” I said to myself and I decided to share my thoughts as my Opinion for the week. First, this was what Amos prophesied:
Hear this, you who trample upon the needy and destroy the poor of the land!
“When will the new moon be over,” you ask, “that we may sell our grain,
and the sabbath, that we may display the wheat?”
We will diminish the containers for measuring, add to the weights, and fix our scales for cheating!
We will buy the lowly man for silver, and the poor man for a pair of sandals;
even the refuse of the wheat we will sell!”
On that day, says the Lord GOD, I will make the sun set at midday and cover the earth with darkness in broad daylight.
I will turn your feasts into mourning and all your songs into lamentations.
I will cover the loins of all with sackcloth and make every head bald.
I will make them mourn as for an only son, and bring their day to a bitter end.
Yes, days are coming, says the Lord GOD, when I will send famine upon the land:
Not a famine of bread, or thirst for water, but for hearing the word of the LORD.
Then shall they wander from sea to sea and rove from the north to the east
In search of the word of the LORD, but they shall not find it. Hear this, you who trample upon the needy and destroy the poor of the land!
All Prophet Amos said, is happening in the world today. Let us see what is happening in this country that fulfils this prophecy.
In Ghana today, corruption is in vogue and is everywhere from the top to the least in society. While those in authority, not only the politicians are using loopholes in the law to cover their corrupt tracks, those down below feel justified in being corrupt, because to them, “the big men up there are doing worse things, so we too must do same to survive.”
The middleman buys a box of tomatoes at farm gate for GH¢400.00 and it gets to the final consumer at four tomatoes for GH¢20.00, meaning eighty tomatoes on the market, cover the farm gate price.
There are unnecessary hiking of prices of goods and services and those involved will blame government and our weak economy.
Lawyers and judges who have vowed to uphold justice are not entirely clean, as some crooks flock within them use the law to steal from the weak and ignorant and get away with murder.
Some in others institutions will take corrupt advantage, as in the case of a staff of a service company, who cleverly got beneficiaries to MoMo their monthly subscriptions into his personal account but never paid anything to the company. The list is long and meanwhile, those deep in corruption will always turn round to accuse others.
Today the NDC’s accusation of the NPP’s selling off some SSNIT shares, is a cover up of worse things it did when in government, like the outright sale of Ashanti Goldfields to foreign cronies. And, today, a document, called Agyapadie, alleged to be plans of some people in power, to forever, hold on to Ghana’s wealth, is yet to be publicly, debunked. And in all this, the needy and the poor are being trample upon and destroyed.
In 2020, God made the sun set at midday, and Covid-19 came, hoping this will put fear in us, so we walk straight. Covid turned our feasts into mourning, claiming lives of loved ones and yet after it subsided, there were no lessons learnt.
Is our waywardness, the result of famine of the Word of God as prophesied?
There are lots of corrupt men and women of God, today, who think more of their material wellbeing than about the salvation of their followers and would always love to live as wealthily as some celebrities.
Daily, they make sure that their followers give them all they have, so that they can live very comfortably. After the poor in church are drained off all their money, and walk back home on foot, clinging their hopes on the word from their pastor, “Believe and have faith. The Lord will bless you,” the booty is shared, behind closed doors.
Tithing has become mandatory, because the congregation is told such monies go directly to God. Meanwhile, the tithes end up in the pockets of the church elders while the poor only grow in the faith that one day life will change, as long as he sows more seed offerings and pays his tithes.
God warns against the trampling of the needy and the destroying of the poor in society and so it is about time, we in Ghana and in the world all over, get transformed and live in virtue, obeying every word from God, before He makes the sun dark, again.
We are in transition in this life and our conduct here will determine our fate in the life in eternity, hereafter. Stay Blessed!
Hon. Daniel Dugan
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect The Chronicle’s stance.