Weeds, the kind Jesus talked about in his parable of the 4 soils (Matthew 13) , are stubborn things. You find them everywhere. But they remain because most people don't want to pull them out. It's simpler just to go with the flow of life. In the end they will overcome the field and starve the fruit.

To those who are allowing weeds to grow mercilessly in God's garden, Amos cries out (chapter 6):

"Woe to you who are at ease in Zion...woe to you who put far off the day of doom... who lie on beds of ivory, stretch out on your couches... invent for yourselves musical instruments... and drink wine... but are not grieved for the affliction of Joseph [the people of God]... "

Haggai adds (chapter 1), "Is it time for you yourselves to dwell in your paneled houses, and this temple [God's House] to lie in ruins?... you have sown much, and bring in little. You eat, but do not have enough; you drink, but are not filled with drink; you clothe yourselves, but no one is warm; and he who earns wages, earns wages to put into a bag with holes..."

Granted, the prophets spoke to particular situations. In the days of Amos, the enemies of God threatened, but so many of God's people didn't seem to care. In Haggai's day, the doors were wide open to build up the house of God, but God's people cared only about their own things.

Like I said, weeds grow everywhere and at all times. The same weeds threaten us. Here's North Korea, not only a starving pitiful nation of prisoners, but a place where God's own special people have been entrapped and are crying out for help. Can we hear their crying? Have the weeds of materialism so smothered us that we are deaf to their cries?