Part of the ongoing Verse Quick Reference project.

Amo 3:6 Is a trumpet blown in a city, and the people are not afraid? Does disaster come to a city, unless the LORD has done it?
Amo 3:7 “For the Lord GOD does nothing without revealing his secret to his servants the prophets.

Amos 3:6-7 is much like the theme of Isaiah 42-48. God is said to declare all His works to His prophets before God acts. The concept is that people can then differentiate between God’s acts and happenstance. It is not very convincing to attribute acts to God “after the fact”. Any false religion can do that. The test of a true God is revealing power acts before those acts are accomplished.

Notice how this passage is antithetical to concepts such as God controlling all things. If God does everything, and everything God does is told to his prophets, then God would have to be communicating all sorts of endless, infinite, trivial things to people that have neither the time nor the brainpower to process. The assumption in Amos is that God does not do everything, and that when God does act in a way to show His power He then makes it public such that He can gain credit.