Sunday, January 28, 2007-AM
Amos: When God's People Aren't Any Better Than the
World
Wicked Inside and Out
Amos 1-2
Introduction: An Analysis of the World
In the eighth century, b. c.,
Amos isn't one of great thinkers of the day, but he begins his
prophetic ministry by delivering an analysis about and message of condemnation to
the world of his day. It's not going to
be a kind message, as is easily seen by the way he begins:
And he
said:
"The
Lord roars from
and
utters his voice from
the
pastures of the shepherds mourn,
and
the top of
He then
begins to describe the wickedness of
·
·
·
·
The Edomites, the first cousins of the Israelites,
and neighbor to the southeast, had continually been a thorn in the side of the Israelites.
·
The Ammonites, descendants of
·
The Moabites, first cousins to the Ammonites, and
another eastern neighbor, were as arrogant as the Ammonites were cruel. "The people could probably point to a
building erected to their god and say, 'The king of
Thus
says the Lord:
"For
three transgressions of
and
for four, I will not revoke the punishment,
because
they have rejected the law of the Lord,
and
have not kept his statutes,
but
their lies have led them astray,
those
after which their fathers walked.
So I
will send a fire upon
and it
shall devour the strongholds of
Thus
says the Lord:
"For
three transgressions of
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;
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.
"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
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
declares
the Lord.
"But
you made the Nazirites drink wine,
and
commanded the prophets,
saying,
'You shall not prophesy.'
"Behold,
I will press you down in your place,
as a
cart full of sheaves presses down.
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 (2:4-16).
God's people aren't let off the hook. After all, they've been just as bad as their
wicked neighbors. In fact, they act like
them in many ways, especially in their disregard for the only true God.
What's really interesting in this series of rebukes and
pronouncements of condemnation is that
There is one main problem with the snobs of
Self-serving Lifestyle
Amos
begins by describing their lifestyle.
The most obvious problem is their oppression of the poor. The rich win court cases against the innocent
poor because they bribe the judges. They
enslave (a complaint they've had against some of their neighbors) their own
people, which was against God's law:
"If your brother becomes poor beside you and
sells himself to you, you shall not make him serve as a slave: he shall be with you as a hired servant and
as a sojourner. He shall serve with you until the year of the jubilee. Then he shall go out from you, he and his
children with him, and go back to his own clan and return to the possession of
his fathers. For they are my servants,
whom I brought out of the
What's more, they were doing it for as little as a
pair of shoes. Add to this the fact that
they also had a total disregard for the needy, and you'll quickly see that
these people were only concerned about themselves and their own gain.
Self-serving Worship
Not only did they have problems with their lifestyle, but they
also had problems with their worship.
Before discussing these problems, it's important to understand that
lifestyle reflects worship and vice-versa.
In fact, when we chart the history of the northern kingdom, we notice
that one of the first things Jeroboam I does is to deviate from the prescribed
worship of Jehovah. Why would he do such
a thing? Convenience. Instead of making the trek down to Jerusalem
to worship, the northern tribes would now be able to worship closer to home, in
Bethel (a southern city in Israel, which wasn't very far from Jerusalem) and
Dan (a northern city in Israel). It
would seem that they began by being self-serving in their worship and it
eventually spilled over into their lifestyle.
This self-serving attitude toward worship got worse. By the time Amos comes along, they are
full-fledge pagans, though it's very likely in their presumptuous way of
thinking that they thought that they were worshiping Jehovah. They reinterpreted the gods of their
contemporaries into their god. Their
worship involved cultic prostitution and wild feasting. It wasn't simply that they were involved in
sexual immorality; they were doing this in an effort to worship some demented
conception of Jehovah.
To see how worship and lifestyle always go together, simply consider
the garments they were using to lay themselves down on while engaging in their
self-serving worship. "Garments
taken in pledge," according to the law, were supposed to be returned to
the poor man before sundown so that he could be warm:
"When
you make your neighbor a loan of any sort, you shall not go into his house to
collect his pledge. You shall stand
outside, and the man to whom you make the loan shall bring the pledge out to
you. And if he is a poor man, you shall
not sleep in his pledge. You shall
restore to him the pledge as the sun sets, that he may sleep in his cloak and
bless you. And it shall be righteousness for you before the Lord your God"
(Deut. 24:10-13).
These
people were only concerned about themselves, which makes no sense. After all, what made them think they anybody
important? They weren't anything but
slaves in
Inability to Save Themselves
from God's Wrath
Jehovah, with a touch of irony, plans to give them exactly what
they love the most, i.e., themselves. But,
it won't be picnic. God is going to
allow their wicked neighbors to press them into the ground, just as they had
been doing the poor of their own people.
Without God's power and protection, the
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."
Without God, they will perish.
Conclusion: Where Are We in All of This?
When we come to such a harsh indictment against God's people as we
find in Amos 2, we have to ask ourselves, "Where are we in all of
this?"
It's easy to look at the people of the world and be disgusted
with how they live. Yet, we shouldn't be
shocked. After all, they're living
exactly the way they've determined to live, and it doesn't take a Sherlock
Holmes to point out their wickedness and sins.
But
what if God were to send an old country preacher to us today, what would he
say? He might say, "You folks seem
to be very religious and dedicated to the Lord.
You have good Sunday night and Wednesday night numbers. The offering looks pretty good, too. You're singing is heavenly and your worship
is uplifting. But, friends, are you
livin' right? Are you treatin' people
right? Are you kind and
considerate? Do you mind your
manners? Or, are you rude and demanding? How do treat that waitress on Sunday
afternoon? Do you talk down to her and
treat her like a slave who is somehow beneath you? Do you demand perfection from her, and then
get upset when she doesn't perform up to that unreasonable standard?
"Do
you try to lend a helping hand, or do you turn your eyes and just walk on by? Are you concerned about the welfare of others,
especially your brothers and sisters in Christ? Do you pray for them
regularly? Or, do you just criticize the
ones who've disappointed you? Friends,
are you livin' right?
"Friends,
are you worshipin' right? Do you come to
worship to pour out yourself before God in reverence and honor, or do you come
to get the elders off your back for this week?
Do you put your heart and soul and mind into it, or do you simply come
and take up space? Do you come just to
see if you'll get something out of it that day, and then complain when you
don't? Or, do you come to worship the
Almighty with a sincere heart?"
"Friends, I love you, but I've got to tell you that if you
ain't livin' right and you ain't worshipin' right, you'd better repent before
it's everlastingly too late!"