This message is available as an audio file https://creators.spotify.com/pod/show/hope-whangarei/episodes/26-1-25-Howard-Carter---The-words-of-Amos--the-Lord-roars-e2tvr82 preached at HopeCentral a site of HopeWhangarei Januray 26th 2025.
I have no experience of Lion’s in the wild. The only time
I’ve heard a lion’s roar has been at the Auckland Zoo as the advertised feeding
time draws near, and at feeding time at the Paradise valley springs wildlife
park just outside of Rotorua. Amos as a shepherd in Tekoa had first hand experience
of lions in the wild and would have been aware the ,lion’s roar was sign of impending
danger or doom for his flock. But the roar is more than that.
As I was preparing
for this sermon series on Amos, and pondering on the phrase ‘the Lord Roars’ I travelled
away from Whangarei and had a providential encounter. No I didn’t encounter a
lion in deepest darkest Africa, rather this encounter happened in deepest
darkest Waipu. Not on the wide savanna but in a Presbyterian church hall. Not
over the carcass of a slain wildebeest but a selection of wood fired
pizzas. I was doing a seminar for the
elders at Waipu on communion and afterward as we were having diner, the
conversation got round to Lion’s roaring in the wild. AS I said God’s
providence. One of the elders was south African and had been a safari guide at
a wild life reserve. He spoke of lion’s roaring in the night in terms of a Lion
calling it pride back to himself. Here I
am come to me.
The Lord roars and Amos is a book about God’s judgment on
sin, but also of hope… the lord roars and calls his people back to himself. This
is what God has always done. It is the basis of the gospel of Jesus Christ. A
God who is holy and loving.
Leading up to Easter this year we are going to be working our way through the book of Amos. The series is called “the Lord Roars, Let justice flow’. Which I think is wonderful encapsulated in the image we are using for this series. A lion roaring and crystal clear water coming out of its mouth. The image is a very 21st century, its computer generated; AI at work. For me it also reflects a connection to the New Testament… Jesus as the lion of Judea and living water flowing forth as the lion speaks.
The series title The Lord roars let justice flow’ picks up
the introduction to the book of Amos we had read to us this morning, and the most famous quote from this book “But let justice roll
down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream’, picking up
Amos’ major theme that the worship of God should result in justice and
righteousness, in how we treat people in society. Particularly the marginalised
and poor. The true worship of God says Amos, results in justice and righteousness
for all.
This message is an introduction to the series, and we are
focusing on the first two verse of the book. These verses do two things. They
introduce us to the prophet and the time in which he is speaking. Then in the
second verse in poetic form we have the focus of his message. We going to look
at those two things, draw some things out for us today and why Amos is
important to us in 2025.
Firstly, we are introduced to Amos. All the information we
have about Amos the person are in the two passages we had read this morning. We
are told that these are the words of Amos, one of the shepherds of Tekoa, that
he saw concerning Israel. I don’t know about you but this sort of gives Amos a
kiwi feel. A farmer from a rural town down south somewhere.. Tekoa…in Amos 7 we learn that Amos is into mixed
economy farming. He has sheep and he also dresses sycamore trees, he is an
orchardist. Anyone watching country Calendar these days will recognize that
diversification in farming. We think of
a shepherd as a lowly person in society, but the word used of Amos is that he oversees
shepherds, he is some one of substance in the agrobusiness world of his day.
Amos 7 tells us he is not part of the official religious
system in The North or even in his home land of Judea. He is not a professional
prophet. The king in the north and the temple in Jerusalem would have had
people who were official seers, he’s not one of them. Elijah and Elisha were
part of a school of prophets. But he’s not. Amos says God called him to come
and give a word to the northern kingdom. He follows in the tradition of Moses
and David who are called from watching sheep to being about tending to God’s
flock.
The book is introduced as the words of Amos yet Amos is one
of the books where almost everything except the two readings this morning is
prefaced with thus says the Lord. Amos believes he is speaking God’s word. This is shown to us in the fact that we are
also told that these are the words Amos saw. They come from beyond him, he
looks and speaks with God given insight into what is going on in Israel. He is
not an innovator but applies the Sinai covenant to the present situation. For
Christians to be prophetic it’s the same, spirit led, we apply the gospel to
the context and situation we find ourselves in.
The phrase ‘Thus says the Lord’ uses the language of a
herald sent from a king, when the herald reads the kings message it is as if
the King himself is speaking. When you
read Amos its God speaking but its also very much Amos… his rural background
comes out. The idea of God as a lion, and the danger to the flock. Images of
summer fruit, issues with weighing grain, the term fat cows of bashan, that he
uses against the women of Samaria who encourage their husbands corrupt business
practices. It’s Amos the farmer.
It speaks into our idea of the inspiration of scripture as
we see Amos and his personality and background being part of a message from
God. The prophets are not possessed or over taken by God’s spirit, but are
sensitive and open to what God is saying and faithful communicate it. We
shouldn’t be surprised by that God is able by his Spirit, to use who we are and what we have
experienced in life that shapes and forms us, to share his word into the
situations we find ourselves in. I hope this inspires us that God is able to
speak into our world and time through ordinary people like Amos, like you and I who are open to seeing what God
wants and then speaking and acting on it.
The second thing from the opening verse is that the writer
gives us a context Amos is speaking to. We are told that it is in the reign of
Uzziah king of Judea, Uzziah is the name used in 2 chronicles 26 but in 2 kings
he has the name Azariah and Jeroboam son
of Joash king of Ephraim or Israel. Jeroboam’s lineage is mentioned as there
are two king Jeroboam’s, and this identifies the king as Jeroboam the 2nd.
So Amos is speaking between 790-740bc, a couple of decades before the Assyrian
empire will come and destroy Sameria, the capital of the northern kingdom, and
take its people into exile.
We get another more precise indicator of when Amos was
ministering with the reference to ‘two years before the earthquake’. We have
references to a catastrophic earthquake in Zechariah and archaeologists digging
at a place called Hazor have found evidence of such destruction in what they
say is about 760bc. This earthquake maybe one of the reasons that Amos’ words
were deemed worthy of preserving as Amos in several places talks of the
earthshaking. The earthquake was seen as evidence of his word coming true.
But this sets the scene for us as to when Amos is speaking.
The northern kingdom, ten tribes of Israel, had separated from Judea and Dan
after Solomon’s son had enforced harsh taxes and labour laws on the people. They
form the northern kingdom, also known as Israel and in Amos as Ephraim. They
still worship YhWh the God who called them out of Egypt, but it would not do to
have people from the north go back to Judea to worship at Jerusalem. They set up their own shrines at Bethel and
Dan. They establish their own priests and worship rituals. These places are
often sites where other prophets like Hosea will accuse Israel of being
unfaithful to their God, as they combine their worship with the worship of
god’s from the nations around them.
By the time Amos is ministering the two nations have been
separate for over two hundred years. Jeroboam 2 reign is a time of prosperity
and plenty in the north, which they saw as God’s blessing on them but the brief
epitaph for Jeroboam 2 in 2 kings 15 says Jeroboam did evil in the sight of the
Lord. And as biblical scholar Douglas Stuart says it was a time known for its greed,
corruption and apostacy’ where there was a section of the population becoming
rich but at the expense of others. Amos
will speak of people coming to worship God at their extravagant festivals full
of colour and music and food and song but sitting on the cloaks of the poor
taken illegally as collateral for
crippling loans.
Which lead on to the second verse today where the book is
described as the Lord Roaring from Zion, and thundering from Jerusalem causing
the land to wither and go into draught, even the fertile areas around Mt Camel.
The people of Ephraim thought that their
prosperity and national security were signs of God’s blessings, but Amos rather
tells them that God’s word is going to be judgment. It is a curse passage.
Picking up attack by wild animals and draught, and later earthquake and exile,
Amos tells the people at Bethel and in the north that while they have not kept
their covenant relationship with God, God will keep his. In Deuteronomy there
is a list of blessings for keeping the covenant and a list of curses
consequences for not keeping it and God, says Amos, is going to apply that list
to Ephraim.
A couple of things. The first is Amos points out that the real
dwelling place of God with his people is the temple in Jerusalem, in Zion. This
is where God speaks from. It is a condemnation of the northern religious
system. While the message from the shrine at Bethel and Dan is God is blessing
us, the message from God is not that. Second it tells us Amos’ words are
specifically to Israel. Which is surprising as the first oracle of Amos starts
with God’s judgment of Israel's neighbours. But the focus will be on what God is
saying to the people of Israel. The
people in Ephraim thought they pleased God and earned his favour through their
religious enthusiasm, their festivals and elaborate rituals, and sacrifices,
like God was like one of the god’s of
their neighbouring lands who could be manipulated and coerced into blessing
them. But YhWh, the God of Israel is a Holy God, righteous and just and calls
his people to show that in how they live, in the treatment of one another. God
has shown his mercy to Israel by delivering them from slavery in Egypt and bringing
them to the promised land and they were called to be a people that reflected
Their God’s great mercy and faithfulness. Looking forward to the New Testament Jesus
says people will know we are his
disciples if we love one another. As john will put it ‘ God first loved us and
gave his son as a redeeming sacrifice, so let us love one another.
I just want to make a couple of quick points about why Amos
is relevant to us today here and in 2025.
Firstly, down through the ages Amos has been used by God to
be the conscience of the church. To reawaken people to the connection between
faith and a social justice. Maybe the best example of that in recent history is
the fact that ‘let Justice flow like a river and righteousness like a never
ending stream’ is engraved in granite on the wall of the Civil Right’s memorial
in Montgomery Alabama. Where It over looks a fountain where the names of 41
martyrs who were killed in the Civil Right’s movement in the US are also
etched. It is a quote attributed to Martin
Luther King Jr from his ‘ I have a dream’ speech on the steps of the capital
building in Washington DC. But MKL is a biblical preacher and was quoting Amos.
Calling America to remember their biblical roots and their own covenant the
constitution, and apply it to all people. Again it was the Lord roaring… It
speaks to us today as we wrestle with a world more and more divided between the
haves and have not’s it speaks to a country like our own struggling with issues
of Justice and righteousness around ti tiriti. It challenges our faith and how
it calls us to be involved in this world in a Christ honouring way. The Lord
Roars let justice flow.
Secondly Amos I believe calls us again to be aware of the
holiness of God. It is easy to fall into a gospel which is only about God’s
love and to forget God’s holiness. The danger of that is what Dietrich
Bonhoeffer calls cheap grace. Grace that does not change and keep on bringing
transformation within us. That settles for the status quo, and personal comfort,
not the kingdom of God. To a certain
extent that focus has come as a reaction to an over emphasis on the holiness of
God and his wrath. The old hell fire and brimstone preaching. Which leads
either to a moralism trying to earn the favour of an angry God, or walking away
from an overbearing God altogether. As we come to Amos we need to realise that
God is Holy, righteous and just and God is love, full of mercy and grace. That
is at the heart of God’s concern for his people and the poor. We have to hold
those things together. If we loose one or the other we loose the profound truth
of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Of a righteous Holy God who in justice, comes with mercy and grace to make a way for us out of slavery to
sin and death ,to new life in Christ and spirit lead new way to live. You may hear it a few times in this series, Tim
Keller puts it like this.
Only when people see
God as absolutely Holy and absolutely loving will the cross of Jesus truly
electrify and change them. Jesus was so Holy that he had to die for us; nothing
less would satisfy his holy and righteous nature. But he was so loving that he
was glad to die for us ; nothing less would satisfy his desire to have us as
his people”
It’s then we can look at our sin and our need for repentance
and also not be discouraged and think we are outside God’s embrace. We are
loved and we are called to be changed by that love to reflect God’s holiness
and there are times when we will hear the Lord roar.
We become a little bit like the people in Ephraim in Amos’
day and tried to domesticate the Lord. We need to hear again Amos’ say The lord
roars, it is a message of warning it is a message of calling us back to
himself. Let me finish with a quote from mr beaver and mr Tumnus the faun in
The lion witch and the wardrobe by CS Lewis. When asked by a child called lucy
if the Christ figure in the book aslam the lion is safe mr beaver replies… "Safe? Who said anything about
safe? 'Course he isn't safe. But he's good. He's the King, I tell you."
Mr. Tumnus added, "He's wild, you know. Not a tame lion”
Hear the lord Roar, let justice flow.
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