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Amos
A Sermon
Delivered at Faith Presbyterian Church, Vancouver, BC, June 12, 1988
Our text today is the book of Amos. Now I must say that Amos is not a pleasant book. It is not a book totally without hope, but it is primarily a book of terror, a book of judgment. God is depicted in this book as a lion who devours. But most lions we have seen are safely behind bars, in cages in zoos! We have no need to fear them. So maybe depicting God as Lion doesn’t work for us today. I would say then that God in this book is like a nuclear bomb.
In my short pilgrimage as a Christian I have had the opportunity to see the book of Amos used by many groups from many perspectives as a hammer with which to bang others over the head. It’s an easy book in a sense to claim as being on “our side.” For Amos is about justice, and everyone seems to have an opinion about what is fair for themselves and others. Both right-wing Christians and left-wing Christians love to denounce the other persuasion with this book. “Amos is on our side and he is speaking against you,” we might think. But you see, there is no way to feel the power, to tremble at the horror, or to hear the message of terrible judgment of Jehovah God, apart from placing oneself under the message, or picturing oneself as the intended audience. Amos must be read and heard not merely out of historical interest, nor out of a desire to study in some detached way how God has dealt with his people, and certainly not as if Amos were written to “them” out there and not to us.
It must be stressed that Amos is written to God’s covenant people, His chosen ones, the people of Israel. Who are the covenant people today? Well, for the Christian, they are the people of Jesus Christ, Messiah Jesus, the people gathered from every tribe and nation, the ekklesia, the church. When Amos was written God’s people were prosperous, materialistic, militarily successful, and callously indifferent to the needs of the poor and weak. Does this sound familiar? Are we, as God’s people, totally immune from the self deception that the people of Israel were so prone to? You may say, “but we have the Holy Spirit, and Jesus promised that the Holy Spirit would lead us into all truth?” Yes, this is true. But did not the churches at Smyrna, Laodicea, and Ephesus have the Holy Spirit? Jesus himself warned them of possible, if not likely, judgment to come. And others whom we see today are clearly apostate – yet they claim the presence of the Holy Spirit. Yes, it is the case, the Holy Spirit can be present among a people without the people necessarily agreeing to walk in that Spirit. God has promised to maintain His church in a continuous thread until the end of time. Indeed we see this promise at the end of the book of Amos. But no specific national church, no denomination, or no local assembly can be guaranteed willy nilly of God’s abiding presence. The removal of His holy presence, the discontinuation of His blessing, indeed His judgment – is this not what we most fear?
So let us approach this book with the spirit that God wants to speak to us through it. If we hear accounts of the sins and short-comings of the people of Israel, let us not say in our hearts “I know people like that.” Rather, let us say, “how might I be like that.” How might my local assembly, my denomination, my circle of Christian friends, the church in my city, be like that. If this can be our approach, then down the road, through the years, and even in a small way today, as we need and hear this great book, then there is hope that our God can speak to us through it.
For it is our God, the covenant God, Jehovah, the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who speaks to us so clearly here in Amos. Yes, he speaks through Amos, this common shepherd from Tekoa in Judah whom He has called to preach to the Northern Kingdom. The word of Amos is Jehovah’s word, which Amos preaches. Indeed, this is a book where God seems to almost overpower the person of the prophet. Amos writing is replete with “This is what Jehovah says, this is what the sovereign Jehovah says, declares Jehovah.” Who is this Jehovah? Just listen:
Amos 4:13 For behold, he who forms the mountains and creates the wind, and declares to man what is his thought, who makes the morning darkness, and treads on the heights of the earth—the Lord, the God of hosts, is his name!
Amos 5:8-9 He who made the Pleiades and Orion, and turns deep darkness into the morning and darkens the day into night, who calls for the waters of the sea and pours them out on the surface of the earth, the Lord is his name; who makes destruction flash forth against the strong, so that destruction comes upon the fortress.
Amos 9:5-6 The Lord God of hosts, he who touches the earth and it melts, and all who dwell in it mourn, and all of it rises like the Nile, and sinks again, like the Nile of Egypt; who builds his upper chambers in the heavens and founds his vault upon the earth; who calls for the waters of the sea and pours them out upon the surface of the earth—the Lord is his name.
The God of Amos is the great God who has made us, who has made the land and the sea in their beauty and fury, who has visited the earth in judgment, and who has revealed his thoughts to man. Yes he has revealed Himself; He has drawn near. He has made a covenant with a people to be their God. Listen as God’s sovereign love of election resounds in Amos’ words:
Amos 2:9-11 “Yet it was I who destroyed the Amorite before them, whose height was like the height of the cedars and who was as strong as the oaks; I destroyed his fruit above and his roots beneath. Also it was I who brought you up out of the land of Egypt and led you forty years in the wilderness, to possess the land of the Amorite. And I raised up some of your sons for prophets, and some of your young men for Nazirites. Is it not indeed so, O people of Israel?” declares the Lord.
Amos 3:1-2 Hear this word that the Lord has spoken against you, O people of Israel, against the whole family that I brought up out of the land of Egypt: 2 “You only have I known of all the families of the earth; therefore I will punish you for all your iniquities.
“You only have I chosen.” Isn’t that intimate, isn’t that unimaginable? Yes, but, it is a fearful thing to be God’s chosen people. The love which God has for His chosen sometimes must use wrath to achieve its ends. This great Creator God has loved His chosen ones so much that he has sent warning after warning – judgment after judgment – to prod them toward repentance. He woos in His gentleness, He woos in His judgment. He disciplines His children because He loves them. Speaking to His stubborn and obstinate people, He says:
Amos 4:6-11 “I gave you cleanness of teeth in all your cities, and lack of bread in all your places, yet you did not return to me,” declares the Lord. “I also withheld the rain from you when there were yet three months to the harvest; I would send rain on one city, and send no rain on another city; one field would have rain, and the field on which it did not rain would wither; so two or three cities would wander to another city to drink water, and would not be satisfied; yet you did not return to me,” declares the Lord. “I struck you with blight and mildew; your many gardens and your vineyards, your fig trees and your olive trees the locust devoured; yet you did not return to me,” declares the Lord. “I sent among you a pestilence after the manner of Egypt; I killed your young men with the sword, and carried away your horses, and I made the stench of your camp go up into your nostrils; yet you did not return to me,” declares the Lord. “I overthrew some of you, as when God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah, and you were as a brand plucked out of the burning; yet you did not return to me,” declares the Lord.
What is it that has brought about such warnings. What has so provoked this sovereign LORD that the fear of His wrath is about to be poured out upon His people? Just what are the sins of Israel?
I would like to read several key passages in Amos which answer this question. Remember as we listen, that while we should not close our minds to how our society matches these descriptions. In our hearts, let us think: how may I be like that, in heart or in deed.
Amos 2:6-8 Thus says the Lord: “For three transgressions of Israel, and for four, I will not revoke the punishment, because they sell the righteous for silver, and the needy for a pair of sandals— those who trample the head of the poor into the dust of the earth and turn aside the way of the afflicted; a man and his father go in to the same girl, so that my holy name is profaned; 8 they lay themselves down beside every altar on garments taken in pledge, and in the house of their God they drink the wine of those who have been fined.
Amos 3:9-10 Proclaim to the strongholds in Ashdod and to the strongholds in the land of Egypt, and say, “Assemble yourselves on the mountains of Samaria, and see the great tumults within her, and the oppressed in her midst.” “They do not know how to do right,” declares the Lord, “those who store up violence and robbery in their strongholds.”
4:1,4-5 “Hear this word, you cows of Bashan, who are on the mountain of Samaria, who oppress the poor, who crush the needy….“Come to Bethel, and transgress; to Gilgal, and multiply transgression; bring your sacrifices every morning, your tithes every three days; offer a sacrifice of thanksgiving of that which is leavened, and proclaim freewill offerings, publish them; for so you love to do, O people of Israel!” declares the Lord God.
Amos 5:12 For I know how many are your transgressions and how great are your sins—you who afflict the righteous, who take a bribe, and turn aside the needy in the gate.
Amos 6:1-6 “Woe to those who are at ease in Zion, and to those who feel secure on the mountain of Samaria, the notable men of the first of the nations, to whom the house of Israel comes! Pass over to Calneh, and see, and from there go to Hamath the great; then go down to Gath of the Philistines. Are you better than these kingdoms? Or is their territory greater than your territory, O you who put far away the day of disaster and bring near the seat of violence? “Woe to those who lie on beds of ivory and stretch themselves out on their couches, and eat lambs from the flock and calves from the midst of the stall, who sing idle songs to the sound of the harp and like David invent for themselves instruments of music, who drink wine in bowls and anoint themselves with the finest oils, but are not grieved over the ruin of Joseph!
Amos 8:4-6 Hear this, you who trample on the needy and bring the poor of the land to an end, saying, “When will the new moon be over, that we may sell grain? And the Sabbath, that we may offer wheat for sale, that we may make the ephah small and the shekel great and deal deceitfully with false balances, that we may buy the poor for silver and the needy for a pair of sandals and sell the chaff of the wheat?”
This that we have heard is a portrait, a painting of the decay of the moral/spiritual/societal life of God’s chosen people. We have seen improper worship of God, and we have seen abuse and neglect of the human needs of the weak and disenfranchised. These two go together hand in glove. There cannot be true obedience to the first half of the Ten Commandments while there is disobedience to the second half. Notice as you read from this book that God’s concern about worship isn’t primarily that it isn’t being done in Jerusalem; nor is it even primarily that worship is being profaned beyond all measure by idols and temple prostitutes. These things alone are enough to bring the strictest condemnation from God. But the emphasis in Amos is different. What profanes the worship of the Israelites in this book is their indifference to, their injustice toward, even their oppression of their fellow Israelites.
We read in Amos 2:8f that certain people lie down with temple prostitutes on garments taken in pledge. That is, part of the bedding used when a person went in and lay with a temple prostituted had been collateral repossessed from a poor man by his creditor. There is a specific commandment against this in Exodus 22:6
“If you take your neighbor’s cloak as a pledge return it to him by sunset because his cloak is the only covering he has for his body. What else will he sleep in. When he cries out to me, I will hear, for I am compassionate.”
It was the disobedience to this commandment which here in Amos profaned the worship even more than the prostitution itself. The same idea is found in the next half of Amos 2:8, “In the house of their god they drink wine taken as fines.” The emphasis here isn’t on the drinking of wine, but on the fact that the wine, being one of the only valuable assets or possessions of a poor man, had been unjustly taken in a court case. These sins were so commonplace, so normal, that people probably never stopped to think about them. But God notices these things, and they are exceedingly important to Him. There is an unbreakable link between acceptable worship of Jehovah, and the merciful and loving and just treatment of others. This is clearly brought out in two of the book’s three short sections of commandments
Amos 5:12-15 For I know how many are your transgressions and how great are your sins—you who afflict the righteous, who take a bribe, and turn aside the needy in the gate. Therefore he who is prudent will keep silent in such a time, for it is an evil time. Seek good, and not evil, that you may live; and so the Lord, the God of hosts, will be with you, as you have said. Hate evil, and love good, and establish justice in the gate; it may be that the Lord, the God of hosts, will be gracious to the remnant of Joseph.
Amos 5:21-24 “I hate, I despise your feasts, and I take no delight in your solemn assemblies. Even though you offer me your burnt offerings and grain offerings, I will not accept them; and the peace offerings of your fattened animals, I will not look upon them. Take away from me the noise of your songs; to the melody of your harps I will not listen. But let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.
Why does God not accept their worship? Because of injustice.
We can see what had happened here. Israel, the Northern Kingdom, had settled into disobedience by having its own special place of worship. This rebellion had been accompanied by a corresponding rejection of God’s law. But this rejection had been, say, selective. That is, there were still sacrifices, still celebration of feasts, and many religious activities which at least in name and partly in implementation resembled what was in the Law. Yet crystal-clear teaching in the Law concerning the poor, needy, widows, aliens, etc., had been systematically ignored. What exists as “religion” is just a big self-deception. And these people actually longed for the day of Jehovah. These people sought vindication from God. What had happened to their consciences? These people lived life day to day just like we do. The sun shone and normal patterns continued. Evil is often invisible when viewed from the inside.
But God could see it as could His prophets, and this is what His response was going to be:
Amos 2:13-16 “Behold, I will press you down in your place, as a cart full of sheaves presses down. 14 Flight shall perish from the swift, and the strong shall not retain his strength, nor shall the mighty save his life; he who handles the bow shall not stand, and he who is swift of foot shall not save himself, nor shall he who rides the horse save his life; and he who is stout of heart among the mighty shall flee away naked in that day,” declares the Lord.
Amos 3:11-15 Therefore thus says the Lord God: “An adversary shall surround the land and bring down your defenses from you, and your strongholds shall be plundered.” Thus says the Lord: “As the shepherd rescues from the mouth of the lion two legs, or a piece of an ear, so shall the people of Israel who dwell in Samaria be rescued, with the corner of a couch and part of a bed. “Hear, and testify against the house of Jacob,” declares the Lord God, the God of hosts, “that on the day I punish Israel for his transgressions, I will punish the altars of Bethel, and the horns of the altar shall be cut off and fall to the ground. I will strike the winter house along with the summer house, and the houses of ivory shall perish, and the great houses shall come to an end,” declares the Lord.
Amos 4:2-3 The Lord God has sworn by his holiness that, behold, the days are coming upon you, when they shall take you away with hooks, even the last of you with fishhooks. And you shall go out through the breaches, each one straight ahead; and you shall be cast out into Harmon,” declares the Lord.
Amos 5:18-20 Woe to you who desire the day of the Lord! Why would you have the day of the Lord? It is darkness, and not light, as if a man fled from a lion, and a bear met him, or went into the house and leaned his hand against the wall, and a serpent bit him. Is not the day of the Lord darkness, and not light, and gloom with no brightness in it?
Amos 6:8-10 The Lord God has sworn by himself, declares the Lord, the God of hosts: “I abhor the pride of Jacob and hate his strongholds, and I will deliver up the city and all that is in it.” And if ten men remain in one house, they shall die. And when one's relative, the one who anoints him for burial, shall take him up to bring the bones out of the house, and shall say to him who is in the innermost parts of the house, “Is there still anyone with you?” he shall say, “No”; and he shall say, “Silence! We must not mention the name of the Lord.”
Amos 9:8 8 Behold, the eyes of the Lord God are upon the sinful kingdom, and I will destroy it from the surface of the ground, except that I will not utterly destroy the house of Jacob,” declares the Lord. There is something here which is even more frightening to me. It is something which clearly could, and does, happen our own day. That has nothing necessarily to do with bombs or wars or famines:
Amos 8:11-12 “Behold, the days are coming,” declares the Lord God, “when I will send a famine on the land—not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water, but of hearing the words of the Lord. They shall wander from sea to sea, and from north to east; they shall run to and fro, to seek the word of the Lord, but they shall not find it.
The Word of God can be aflame in a peoples’ heart even when there are no Bibles, no churches as such, when only fragments of His word spread orally among those who cherish and obey it, and whom God has blessed with the witnesses of His spirit. On the other hand, the word of God can be absent even when there are stacks of open Bibles in every home. For we do not hear the Word of God or see the truth of God unless God opens our eyes and ears. Have there ever been times of dryness in your life when Scripture seemed closed to your heart? Wasn’t it frustrating, even frightening? When conscious or unconscious neglect of and injustice against the needy exists in the life of a people, then their worship is profaned, and God may bring judgment by removing both his presence and His Word. What Amos shows is that God can remove both His presence and His Word, while the people carry on as if He were there. It’s all emptiness and delusion. That is how serious this business of justice is, that God would remove His presence, and even bring great physical judgment for the lack of it.
So what can be said by way of specific application? First, that as we look at the book of Amos and then look at our Norht American culture, we are shocked at the similarities. We conclude that, realistically, we have as a people no right whatsoever, no basis, for presuming upon God’s grace or expecting his favor. We stand in the pathway of judgment. So we must speak prophetically, and I might add, bipartsanly, to this evil time, and call it to repentance.
But we have seen that we cannot, we must not stop there. This book speaks to us, even us here today on June 12, 1988, here on the building on 79th Ave. in VancouverBC. It challenges us in our particular pattern of thoughts, and, I believe, calls us to continue a rigorous collective self-examination. Is it possible in any way that we have hardened our hearts (and indifference and neglect is a symptom of this hardening) toward particular classes of needy and poor. Have I? Have you? Is it possible that this hardening taints our worship in God’s sight? We cannot read Amos honestly without asking ourselves these questions. Is it possible that because we have championed one area of injustice in our society, that we have limited our vision, or possibly grown self-satisfied, or even smug.
I struggle with this smugness, this conservative self-righteousness. I have been rebuked for it. Can we allow God’s name, can we allow evangelical Christianity, to be discredited because we are afraid to admit that theologically liberal, professing Christians may in fact be right in some of their social concerns? Let us not develop a party mentality, and let us not allow others to pigeonhole us, because we have taken upon ourselves only part of the injustice problem in our culture. And finally, let us examine clearly the way we live, the way we give, and whom we may ignore. Possibly we even contribute to injustice actively in ways we don’t even realize. This is serious business. Let us realize it and know that the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ is also the Lion, the nuclear bomb, of Israel, and of the Church.
Amen |
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