Amos 3-6

Two weeks ago we looked at the overall story of the Old Testament through the acronym AMDER—Abraham, Moses, David, Exile, Return from Exile. What we saw throughout the Old Testament was a gracious Creator who lovingly bound himself to a people through the covenant with Abraham. And that covenant relationship between God and Israel is the engine that drives the Old Testament story and sets up the one who would fulfill all the covenant promises—Jesus Christ. So as we dive into the heart of Amos this morning, it shouldn’t surprise us that God’s covenant relationship with his people is behind every aspect of Amos’ prophecies.

I am aware this morning that many of you come into this place with situations at work or home or school that seem worlds apart from Amos 3-6. Maybe there is stagnation in your relationship with God and you know you need some sort of jump-start on your faith. Wherever you are this morning, I want to provide contact points throughout our look at Amos to see how Israel’s covenant relationship with God parallels our experience of being in covenant with God. As I said a few weeks ago, I want us to look at where this portion of scripture fits into the overall story of Old Testament Israel, how that story points to Jesus Christ, and how that bridges over into our experience in 2006.

Amos 3-6 is a unit within the book and its opening words are crucial to understand not only the indictments Amos gives but also how this connects to our lives today. Look with me at verses 1-2 of Amos 3:

“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:
“You only have I known of all the families of the earth;
therefore I will punish you for all your iniquities.””

There are two interconnected relationships here between God and Israel. One is the covenant relationship God formed with Israel. We have talked about that already. But another is the redemptive relationship between God and Israel.
Israel’s Exodus from Egypt was the great redemptive work of God in the Old Testament. It is connected with the covenant as the fulfillment of God’s covenant promises to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. It solidified God’s absolute covenant commitment to his people. It also became the basis of the law, as the Ten Commandments open with the words, “I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.” Therefore Israel was to live a certain way to reflect her covenant relationship to the God that had redeemed her from Egypt.

So the sinful Israel that Amos preaches to was not any nation doing what everyone knows to be wrong, like Renato covered from chapter 1 last week. Israel was God’s chosen people whom he redeemed and committed himself to in covenant. In other words, it’s not just a woman slapping a man, it’s a wife slapping her husband. And it’s not just a wife slapping her husband, it’s a wife slapping the one who found her on the streets, strung out and homeless, put her through treatment, nursed her to health, married her, and provided everything she ever needed. That’s who Israel was slapping in the face by her atrocities.

Before we look at the specific sins that Israel committed, I want to draw a connection between us in 2006 and Israel in 760 B.C. As I do that, I want to be careful not to equate an Israelite in Amos’ day with a Christian in our day. I don’t want to get bogged down in how the New Covenant that we are a part of is similar or different from the Old Covenant, but suffice it to say that being an Israelite in those days is like growing up in the church or a Christian family in our day. What I mean by that is you may grow up hearing about God and learning stories about Jesus, but it is only when you embrace Jesus’ death and resurrection on your behalf by faith and confess with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord!” that you truly enter into a covenant relationship with God.

So as we think about Israelites who grew up hearing songs about the God’s redemptive act in the Old Testament—the Exodus, ask yourself where you are in relationship to God’s redemptive act in the New Testament—the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus Christ. First of all, have you believed that Jesus died for your sins and that he rose again to give you life? Have you been connected to him by faith?

If you have, how much does that affect your daily life? Do you walk through each day with awareness that you deserve God’s eternal wrath for your sins against him, but Jesus came to absorb that wrath for you? Is there a consciousness of being redeemed in your daily thoughts? Are you cognizant of your former status as a slave of sin and Satan and the powerful liberation from that slavery that God has wrought in Christ? Are your eyes fixed on the eternal hope and inheritance that you have in Christ because by faith you are connected with his resurrection? Do you look at those lost friends and coworkers and family members and neighbors around you and weep that they are living in spiritual death? Do you rejoice that you experience eternal life today because God’s Spirit dwells in you and has sealed you for the day of redemption?

I ask all this because I believe part of Israel’s departure from God into sinful ways was looking at God’s redemptive work and saying, “Big deal.” And after you do that a few times, you don’t even think about God’s redemptive work at all. This is the common theme we will find throughout Amos, Micah, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, and Joel, whether we are talking about the northern kingdom Israel, like we are today, or the southern kingdom Judah, like we will in the other four books, the heart of the prophets’ indictment is that God’s people’s hearts had departed from their Lord. They were not in tune with their status as a redeemed people. They did not feel the weight of God’s covenant love and faithfulness toward them. They had a heart of stone that was unmoved by the greatness of their redeemer.

In Amos this heart departure manifested itself both horizontally and vertically. If you’ve lost your place, turn back with me to Amos; we are going to skip around to different sections, first looking at the northern kingdom’s horizontal sins, that is, how they treated one another. Look at 4:1, “Hear this word, you cows of Bashan, who are on the mountain of Samaria, who oppress the poor, who crush the needy, who say to your husbands, ‘Bring, that we may drink!’” Then turn to 5:10-13, “They hate him who reproves in the gate, and they abhor him who speaks the truth. Therefore because you trample on the poor and you exact taxes of grain from him, you have built houses of hewn stone, but you shall not dwell in them; you have planted pleasant vineyards, but you shall not drink their wine. 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.”

Injustice reigned in Israel. There was a lack of respect for authority, a perversion of the legal system through the giving of bribes, and extortion of the poor. It was one of the most prosperous times the northern kingdom experienced, but the rich were getting richer by walking over the backs of the poor. Amos says, “you trample on the poor and you exact taxes of grain from him.” The rich were starving the poor to build more houses and live in ridiculous extravagance. Look at 6:4-6: “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!”

Remember what is going on here—this is not merely a social commentary to say that the rich are corrupt and the poor are oppressed and by golly something needs to change around here. Injustice is merely the symptom. The deeper issue is that God had shown his covenant mercy to Israel when they were poor, and they were expected in turn to be merciful to the poor. Remember the promise to Abraham, “I will bless you so that you will be a blessing.” It was even built into the Law of Moses that those who owned fields were not to harvest the corners, so that the poor could glean and survive. But instead of showing mercy to the poor, Israel extorted the poor. Israel, who had been enslaved to Egypt, was now playing the role of taskmasters to their own countrymen. The core sin was that they were abandoning their covenant God by ignoring his mercy and justice. And the call for repentance is captured by Amos 5:14-15: “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.”

The amazing thing is that in the midst of this injustice, Israel was still going through the rituals of religion. But God was not impressed by their hollow routine. Look at Amos 4:4-5: “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.” Then turn to 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.”

What is even more baffling is that Israel thought that God was on their side because they paid him lip service. There was this expectation is Hebrew thought for the “Day of the Lord”—the day when God would come down in power, vindicate Israel, and crush her enemies. But look at what Amos says about this in 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?”

In other words, the day of the Lord was bad news for God’s enemies and good news for his faithful people. And Amos was saying, “You are acting like God’s enemies right now, so why do you want him to come down? He will only come in judgment.” And that is the language Amos uses for God’s impending judgment on the northern kingdom. Turn with me to chapter 4. In verses 6-11 God tells Israel of five distinct disasters he had sent to warn them of the coming judgment, but in each case he says, “yet you did not return to me.” Then look at what he says in verses 12: “Therefore thus I will do to you, O Israel; because I will do this to you, prepare to meet your God, O Israel!”

Now turn to 5:16-17: “Therefore thus says the LORD, the God of hosts, the Lord: “In all the squares there shall be wailing, and in all the streets they shall say, ‘Alas! Alas!’ They shall call the farmers to mourning and to wailing those who are skilled in lamentation, and in all vineyards there shall be wailing, for I will pass through your midst,” says the LORD.”

God clarifies this message of “I’m coming down there” to mean that he would raise up a nation to carry Israel off into exile. They would plunder all the wealth that the corrupted rich had amassed, and would take them away from the promised land and away from their fancy houses they had built with their filthy lucre. And since the rich liked to be first in everything, in 6:7 God says, “They shall now be the first of those who go into exile, and the revelry of those who stretch themselves out shall pass away.”

Like all of the prophets to God’s chosen people, Amos ends on a positive, hopeful note, because all of God’s discipline of his people has restoration as its goal. So next week Aaron will have the privilege of sounding that note, but for now we must ask where this morning’s message meets us in 2006.

The question that looms before us based on Amos’ message to Israel is the question of mercy. Do we feel the weight of the mercy God has shown to us in Christ? Do we understand or at least attempt to plumb the depths of the covenant, steadfast love and faithfulness that God displayed in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ? Do we shake our heads in astonishment that Jesus died for my sins and was raised again to give me eternal, resurrection life? Do we taste the sweetness of being united with Christ by faith? Do we labor to understand all of the riches that we have in Christ—right standing with God, reconciliation with God, adoption into the family of God, and the down payment of the Spirit that transforms us into the image of Christ? Do we strive not to say “Big deal” about the gospel, but rather to maintain deep sense of wonder that we are saved by grace?

These are the heart issues that we must nail down. But one way to ask ourselves these questions is to examine our horizontal relationships to see whether or not mercy is filtering out into those relationships. Am I so bathed in God’s patience with me that I am freed to be patient with my roommate or spouse or child? Young people, ask yourself this: do I really believe that God deeply loves me, and has given me the body I have and the family I’m in and the school I attend for a purpose? Am I deeply satisfied in who I am in Christ so that I can sit with the unpopular kid in the cafeteria, or for that matter, sit with the popular kids and tell them about how good God has been to me?

How do we approach Amos’ condemnation of the injustice against the poor? Certainly there are direct applications that businessmen and women can take to heart: am I building my business on unfair wages or do our company policies disadvantage a particular group of people? And there may be broader structural issues in our society to be concerned with: am I in any way supporting the person who would try to sell Renato a mortgage at 35% interest? Am I a part of any structure that advantages me because of my ethnic or economic status and disadvantages someone else based on theirs?

But deeper than all of these is the question, if God blessed me, am I seeking to be a blessing? Or do I have a “what can I take” attitude toward those who might be vulnerable or have no voice? Do I have a “what can I take” attitude toward those with great wealth or physical attraction or good connections? Does God’s boundless mercy toward me strike so deeply in my soul that I ask, “how can I bless? How can I be a channel of God’s loving kindness to that person?”

Finally, we look at our vertical relationship to ask if our worship of God reflects his great worth. Do we count it a privilege to meet with God in the morning to saturate in his Word until our hearts are happy in him? When we drive by the billboard trying to sell us the next whatever, do we counteract with a sweet confession of the sufficiency of God? When we sing congregationally, do our minds and hearts connect with the words being sung? Is God the Treasure of our lives?