here is an audio recording of this message preached at HopeCentral on February 23rd 2025
When I read the passage in Amos chapter 4 I couldn’t help
but think of those occasions you hear of a motorist driving the wrong way on
the motorway, straight into oncoming traffic, into impending doom. The image
behind me is from the New Zealand Hearld in November 2023. Where an elderly motorist in a red Suzuki Swift
was caught on video going the wrong way on an Auckland motorway.
My mind sort of wandered and wondered what must have
happened before the motorist got into that situation. You’ve probably all been
on those interchanges over the motorway in Auckland. You have signs that tell
you which way to go so you know where to turn and if you follow them you’ll be
alright. They even have dead ends for the turn offs your not supposed to use.
If you did manage to turn the wrong way down an off ramp there is a sign that
says wrong way, turn back, no entry. You’d have to ignore that. This is my
imagination right, but its Auckland New Zealand you could just about guarantee,
there would be a man in a hi viz jacket putting out cones along the off ramp.
He would have seen you coming and waved his arms and shouted at you ‘ turn
round you are going the wrong way. If you don’t there will be a disaster.’
You’d have to avoid him as he courageously tried to step out in front of you.
You’d have to swerve to avoid cars coming up the ramp in the opposite
direction, disregard the angry blast of their horns. It was reported that earlier the motorist in
the article, had also been seen trying to drive the wrong way down the off ramp
at another intersection, swerving to avoid cars before, thankfully, doing a u-turn.
Even once you were on the motorway there were those who
tried to help. In the incident in that photo, the article praised the drivers
he confronted. A man in a ute stopped in front of him as did people in the lane
next to him, trying to block his way and to give him room to turn around and go
the right way. But the motorist in the red Suzuki Swift dodged round them and
pulled out into the faster lane to try and keep going the wrong way.
If he or you didn’t listen, didn’t heed the warnings, then
it was going to end with a crash!
Thank God it wasn’t
too late for the motorist in November 2023… As eventually he did turn round and
simply speed off down the motorway, the right way, as if nothing had happened.
Amos chapter 4 says Biblical scholar James Cranshaw is ‘A liturgy of missed opportunity’ in an almost Monty Pythonesque satire of a call to worship at the shire in Bethel, Amos points out all the warning signs, that God has used to call Israel to turn back to him. That they had ignored, there is that repeated refrain “but you did not turn back to me”, So many ways the lord had roared, and now like the man inj the hi viz frantically waving his arms of the Ute driver doggedly trying to stop that motorist, Amos is the last chance before Israel will meet head on The God whom they simply pay lip service to, their so called worship rituals having more to do with a show of public piety that genuine love awe and worship of God. Their society did not reflect the love and justice of God… the LORD roars lets Justice flow
Lets look at the passage.
In my minds eye I could see Amos coming to Samaria or
Bethel, and up on the balcony of the mansions in the middle of town there are
party’s going feasts. Th wives of the officials and corrupt merchants gather
for long lunches where they are enjoying the best food and wine. The laughter
and merriment sort of shows that they are drinking excessively. Now Amos is not
anti-wine but what hits him is the demand for more and more, living this
luxuriant lifestyle. Revelling in excess and wealth based on the oppression of
others. Celebrating and amusing themselves in a way that is ignorant of or as
Amos say encouraging injustice. Maybe
even as he is standing there looking he can hear the bidding and the hammer
fall in a slave auction as those who cannot pay back even small loans are being
sold into slavery, and their lands forfeited. He had come in through the rural
areas where the farmers were struggling with subsistence living, and all the
equity of their land was being gathered into the hands of a wealthy and
influential few.
Amos couldn’t help but think of the cows of Bashan. Bashan,
was the richest grazing land in Israel, and was famous for its fat cows. Amos
sees just like with those cows being readied for the slaughter. Amos knows that
God is Holy and Just and will not let continued disregard for Israels covenant
relationship with him. There will be a judgment. So Amos, inspired by the spirt
says thus says the lord… Like those
prize cows these women will find themselves, being slaughtered and dragged out
of the city on hooks, or like prized cattle be lead away with a ring through
their noses into exile and captivity. Which
is what happened when the Assyrians captured Samaria in 720bc.
It challenging because as John Goldengay says
“People who Enjoy the
benefits of oppressive structures and practices share in the responsibility for
them and thus share in the judgment for them, even if they are not directly involved
in their administration.”
I wonder what Amos would see when he looked at us? Would his
heart be grieved by a standard of living and consumerism, with the possibility
of slave labour, and unjust labour practices in our supply chain? While there
has been concerted effort to address treaty grievances, maybe he would wonder
about prosperity based on land confiscated at the end of the land wars and other
means.
Amos then seems to follow the crowd to the shrine at Bethel.
A place he would automatically associate with apostacy. The proper place to worship God was
the Temple In Jerusalem, and when Jeroboam 1 had set the shrine up he had
erected a golden calf and said it was the calf that had lead the people out of
Egypt. But as Amos watched he would have
seen people coming and being called to worship by the priest. There were
sacrifices and offering being bought. But as Amos watches he becomes aware of
two things. One is that these sacrifices are not for the forgiveness of sins,
there is an absence of self-reflection and concern that lives were not lived in
way that reflected and honoured the LORD. The was an unholy disconnect between
words, ritual and lifestyle. Even the thanksgiving
offerings and tithes and freewill offerings were being made in a way that was
to draw attention to the giver not out of reverence to God. Grand gestures but
did it go more than skin deep more than a public show… If Amos had been a fan of
Australian sit coms he may have had that famous line from Kath and Kim echoing
in his mind ‘ Look at Me, look at Me, Look at Me’. Jesus in the sermon
on the mount warned his followers about the spirituality of the Pharisees who
prayed and fasted and did all the right things, but again it was a show of
their piety to get status and applause rather
than genuine worship and seeking after God.
Inspired by God, Amos satirises the priests call to worship.
Come to bethel and sin, come to Gilgal and rebel… Then maybe the priest had
used a psalm which spoke of all the good thing God had done, God’s saving acts.
Maybe they had used a prayer that was designed to renew the covenant
relationship. Amos ceases upon that and still focusing on God’s faithfulness
recounts many of the difficult times that Israel experienced, famine, draught, mildew,
locusts, plagues… pandemics in our vernacular, war and conflict, and what
scholars see as possibly an earthquake. Yet in all those times Israel did not
stop and think, they did not see these things which echoed the covenant curses in
Deuteronomy 28. Consequences for disobeying the covenant. Faced with even these
things they did not change and turn back to God.
I have to say one of the big questions people have is around
the difference between God revealed in the Old testament and God revealed in
the New. We see the Old Testament God as a god of wrath and judgment and the New
Testament as one of Love. Passages like Amos 4 are part of that. I was
listening to a pod cast by the Bible Society UK called #Shetoo where women
theologians and biblical scholars were wrestling with the terror passages in
the Old Testament, that speak of abuse and violence towards women. And what
they say to us today… One of the guests on the pod cast made the comment that
one of the big differences between the New and Old Testament was time. In the New
Testament the books were written over a short time, with a very clear focus,
the gospel of Jesus Christ and how to be this new people of God together. Even
then many letters were written as communities were dealing with false teaching
and behaviour inconsistent with that
gospel. Then Old Testament is written over a long period of time, and deals
with a whole raft of issues to do with a nation state in covenant relationship
with God. The passage in Amos 4 over a small period of time shows that god has
been at work calling his people back to himself over a long period of time. The
wilderness wanderings, the cycles of disobedience, conflict, repentance and deliverance
in judges, the history of the kings and through the prophets. In fact when the
cannon of the Old testament was being put together, the big question was
looking back at Israel’s past and seeing God’s steadfast and faithful love.
Before they were disciplined By God he spoke through the prophets, when they repented,
he saved them, even the exile of the northern kingdom and southern kingdom were
faithful to God’s covenant promises, God was disciplining his people… and he
bought them back. In the New Testament as we have been in Christ, there have
been times in history where the church has headed away from God down the
motorway the wrong way: false teaching, slipping into nominalism, where the
public display of piety masked a lack of spiritual vitality, times when we have
committed the worst of injustices. God by the Spirit has had to speak into
those times and call us back to him. Francis of Assisi, The reformation,
revivals down through the ages. Revivals by the way usually start with the
people of God becoming aware of the love and holiness of God and being prepared
to confess where they have gone wrong… it starts with repentance.
The other question that this passage brings up is Does
God cause bad things to happen to us, to get our attention? Amos’ answer
would be that the one who created the heavens and the earth, the sovereign God
is able to speak to us through those difficult times. My mentor Jim Wallace
once preached a sermon that has stuck in my memory. He was speaking of why
thinks go wrong. he said that there are four main reasons for that. The first is
that we live in a fallen world, and bad things happen. People call it the
problem of evil. Much of the wisdom literature in the Old Testament wrestles
with the question why do bad things happen to good people. Sometimes Christians
think they’ve missed the fall and gone hang gliding instead, wrong. The second
is that there is a biblical principle of you reap what you sow, and often bad
situations and difficulties are the consequences of bad decisions, our own or
ones that we didn’t have any control over. It’s cause and effect. The gospel
can bring transformation into those situations, turning round generational and
individual situations, but we still have to deal with the consequences in that journey.
The third is that we have an enemy of our soul in the devil and bad things can
be spiritual attack, some people want to
see a demon behind every bush, and it takes a lot of discernment when speaking
of spiritual attack, and as Christians we can trust that god has defeated our
enemy at the cross. The last is that yes God is speaking, the LORD is roaring.
In Jonah, God sends a storm to cause Jonah to repent and turn around and obey
him. Paul speaks of the Lord not allowing them to go a certain way as they
awaited a vision to go over to Macedonia in his second missionary journey. Amos would say that bad things difficult times
were great opportunity for people to stop and reflect and see what God just
might be saying to us. For us to turn and again seek God. it is amazing when
you look back at life its then that you can see how God has used all the things
in our life to lead and guide.
Amos finishes his oracle by saying that the people of Israel
will meet the God they say they worship. As sure as if your going the wrong way
down the motorway you are going to meet traffic head on. There view of God as
one who could be paid lip service to and hopefully manipulated by doing the
right rituals at the right time would meet them. A Holy and Righteous God who
does not allow sin and injustice to thrive. It would mean judgment and
discipline.
Amos finishes with a doxology. Inviting the people gathered
for worship to again comprehend the majesty and power and sovereignty of the
God who had called them into a covenant relationship with him. The God of
creation, who formed the mountains, created the wind, but also a God who speaks
(unlike the idols of the countries round them) and reveals his thoughts to
mankind, a God who reveals himself, and of course we see the ultimate
revelation of God in Jesus Christ becoming one of us. The LORD God almighty.
I really struggled to
know how to sort of bring what is a heavy message on a heavy passage into land.
As I was wrestling with that I was reading a book called lead by prayer and one
line just stood out to me. The author says “ repentance is not just a nice
addition to our prayers lives, it is core to our walk with God.” Not to try and
earn the favour of an angry God, or simply for salvation. The life death and
resurrection of Jesus Christ has bought us into a new relationship with God. He
has replaced our sin with his righteousness. We are justified with God through
our LORD Jesus Christ. It is a gift imparted to us. Repentance is needed for
that initial turn around from going our own way to going Gods. But it is an
ongoing process, as we know more and more of the love of God, more and more of
the majesty and holiness of God, we go though this process of realising that we
need to change to become more like Christ. The process of mortification, dying
to ourselves and sanctification, becoming more like Christ.
Our hearts are deceptive and we are fallen human beings, as
we come to know more and more of the goodness and the holiness of God. How much
he has loved us, then we see the darkness and deceptiveness in our hearts. But because
we are in Christ, because of what he has done for us, we know that we can
confess our sins, and God who is faithful and just, will forgive our sins and
cleanse us rom all unrighteousness. We can trust the Holy Spirit that God has
put within us, to lead us to live anew way. That is not only about personal
spirituality but it leads to being willing to seek justice in our society and
world as well…
The Lord Roars Let Justice flow.
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