John Goldingay says that the chapter of Amos we are looking at
this morning invites us into the tension between the necessity of judgment and
the possibility of mercy: Our
understanding of God as both holy and righteous, who will not allow injustice
to flourish and go unanswered, and loving and kind, who forgives and faithful
to his covenant relationship. As we’ve been going through Amos I know many of
you are wrestling with the passages about God’s judgment, it's hard going. This
passage gives us two examples, Amos and
Amaziah, of how we can live in that space, live with that tension. One positive
and the other negative.
The passage also throws up some interesting questions like
does God change his mind? There is that repeated refrain at the end of the
first two visions Amos has where God says I will change my mind or as the NIV
puts it I will relent… and does intercessory prayer work? As God’s reaction
comes in response to Amos’s short but powerful prayers for Israel. Forgive,
stop. Little Israel, personified as Jacob, cannot survive.
And how does all that connect with us here and now.
We are working our way through the scroll of Amos. Amos is
the first of the written prophets in the Old Testament.. Amos is a farmer from Judea,
and he comes to the northern kingdom of Israel and brings God’s word for them.
A word that as they have not kept their covenant relationship with their God. Through
false worship practices and social injustice. Unless they return to God, God is
going to judge or discipline them. The
lord Roars let justice flow.
The passage today starts the third major section in the
scroll. Amos had started with a series of God’s judgments on Israel's
neighbours, for their transgressions, drawing his audience to agree with God’s
judgment as a series of three and four of their actions were described. This
draws the crowd in only to find that Amos’ real intent was to show that Israel
themselves were also worth of God judgment. We can point the finger at those
people out there but God invites us to look at our own life, our own society
our own hearts. Revive us Lord start the work in me… Then we had a collection
of words that Amos received from the Lord. Where he uses poetic form, like
calls to worship and funeral dirges to call Israel to turn back to God. Now we
move from words that Amos saw to a series of five visions that Amos sees of
what God is doing. Chapter 7 recounts the first three of those visions. And
here, Amos himself steps into the story. We have interaction with God in prayer
and also an account of his conflict with Amaziah the priest at Bethel.
Ok let’s work though Amos’ three visions and then we’ll look
at what it has to say to us.
Amos’ first two visions follow an almost identical structure.
We are told the Lord shows Amos what is to come. It is if the prophet is in the
council chamber of God as his plans unfold. Amos responds in prayer, and God
says this will not happen. Maybe it’s a bit like going to the doctor and they
have to tell you the worst case scenario.
The first vision is of a swarm of locusts that God is
whipping up. In chapter 4 Amos has talked of God sending locusts to call Israel
back to himself, but this time the vision is one of complete devastation. The
timing of the swarm is interesting, as it talks of being after the Kings
portion of the harvest. Early in the growing season there would be hay harvest
which would go to feeding the kings horses. Then as the rest of the food crop
now is growing the locusts would come in and devastate the food for people and
animals alike. The result of no harvest would be suffering and starvation.
Amos cries out to God. the word forgive he uses here is the
word for a royal pardon. It is the royal prerogative for lift off the
punishment for a crime that has been committed. The people deserve this
punishment, it is just, but Amos calls for God to have mercy. It is the same type of word that is used in
Jesus parable, where the king forgives the debt of the servant who owed him a
vast fortune. Amos calls Israel, Jacob, refereeing back to Jacob who while
being a scallywag was the one whom God chose over Esau. We are used to this
personification of a group in modern times. Where the plight of a certain group will be
shown to us in the story of one person. Amos’ plea for God’s mercy is based on
the fact that Jacob is small, and weak spiritually and unable to withstand such
a punishment. Also we see Amos’ heart here is for the people, aware that it is
the farmers who were already suffering from the oppression of wealthy land
owners who would suffer the most. The king has his share, and the wealthy can
always move or get food imported.
The second vision is of a judgment by fire. Again this is
one of the curses mentioned in Deuteronomy 32 for constantly breaking the
covenant with God. a fire that would burn
even to the roots of the mountains. Maybe Amos was contemplating these curses
when he saw what the result of them might look like. The fire here burns up the
water even to the depths. Ancient near eastern cosmology had the waters below
the world, from where springs and rivers came. The picture id of a volcanic
eruption or maybe a meteorite strike. The result was a draught where even the
water in the aquafer dries up. I think we’ve all seen the images of people in desert
climates desperately digging deeper and deeper wells to try and find any water.
Again Amos prays not looking this time for God to forgive but a simple stop.
Amos can say this because he aware of the nature of God. again, God says this
will not happen.
Then Amos has a third vision. A vision that revolves around a word used no
where else in the scriptures and which people have wrestled with translating. The
word literally means the metal ‘tin or lead. From the Middle Ages it has been
interpreted as a plumb line. A lead weight on a string by which you could judge
if something is straight and true. God is going to show that Israel is crooked
and as a society is not true. But in the
context it can also mean that Amos saw walls of tin or lead. Walls of the fortresses
of Israel that looked strong but that God was showing were weak, that would be
torn down. Israel put their confidence in their military might and strong walls
but compared to the power of God they were not strong. Either way it is a
vision that God will not spare Israel. Which finishes with God being specific
about what will happen. The high places will be torn down the shrines which are
place of false worship will be destroyed and God will wage war against the
house of jeroboam, the king. God’s discipline and judgment will be against the
places which have caused and allowed and led Israel astray. They not the people
will be destroyed. We don’t know if Amos is not given a chance to intercede for
his people or not as almost like an interruption we have Amaziah come and tell
Amos to stop prophesying. To go home and make his living there… He reports him
to the king as a stirrer, and Amos finishes by speaking a personal word of
judgement on Amaziah. Making God’s judgment on Israel very personal to him and
his family.
Ok what does this have to say to us today?
Firstly we ned to do some theology. At the heart of this
passage is the reality that God is holy, God will not let sin and injustice go
unpunished. There is a necessity of judgment. One of the questions that people
ask is why doesn’t god come and deal with all the bad stuff now/ part of Amos’s
answer maybe the first section of this book, we look and see what is going on
out there and want god to do something… but what if we looked at what is in our
own lives and our own hearts. Also maybe we have a mechanical almost computer
idea of what God is like. God is preprogrammed to act when things get to a
certain level, God will act.
October 10th 1987 is known as Black Monday. On
that day the world stock markets lost about 25% of there value. One of the
contributing factors to that fall was ‘automated trading’ computer programmes
that were in place as portfolio insurance. If certain things happened they
would automatically trigger selling stock. However at the same time suspend
buying. The day before that Monday the market acted in a way that triggered that
insurance mechanism. It mean that stocks were being sold, but no one was buying
and the value plummeted, before they could turn the programme off. Our view of God then becomes cold and impersonal
God, reacting as it is programmed.
But that is not the God of the Bible, that is not the God we
see in Amos. God is responsive to relationship with his people. God listens to
the cry of his people, the intercession of even one righteous person in this
case. It is not God’s nature to want to see people judged and punished, it is
God’s nature to have to judge sin and injustice. In response to Amos God gives Israel more time
to repent and turn back to him. Ultimately we see God’s character revealed in
Jesus Christ. God sending a prophet and intercessor, to call people back to
himself, to repent for the kingdom of God is at hand. But who also could
provide a way for God’s justice and mercy to be shown. In that Jesus gave
himself to received God’s punishment for what we had done wrong, in return for
us receiving his righteousness. A royal pardon from him.
Secondly, in this passage there are two ways in which we can
respond to the requirements of Judgment and the possibility of mercy. Amaziah
shows us a negative way. Amaziah’s response is to say stop saying that. We
don’t want to hear about God’s judgment. Go away. You are just saying those
things because somehow you are benefiting from them. Let’s just keep the status quo. Amaziah is a
religious man, he is a priest at the shrine in Bethel. His religion calls him
to be steady as she goes… he maybe proclaiming that God is blessing us… it was
what Israel thought because things were going well… but it neglected and di not
deal with the injustice and suffering that was going on. We can respond to God
like that… steady as she goes don’t rock the boat, I don’t want to think about
all this stuff. Amos shakes Amaziah out of his indifference by applying what
will happen to his own situation… We might think its pretty hard and harsh… your
wife will be prostitute, like many women in war she will be open to sexual
abuse, and your children die, and you will die in exile. However like many old
testament stories it is left open ended we don’t know if it snapped Amaziah out
of his complacency or not. Maybe its left like that so we can examine our own
hearts our own lives our own responses.
The second example is Amos, when Amos is confronted with the
tension between the certainty of judgment and the possibility of mercy, it
turns him to prayer. We see Amos’s love for the people he is prophesying to. God has called him to do this, and he saying
these things in the hope that the people will turn again to God. He is willing
to beseech God on behalf of these rebellious people. Lord forgive, Lord stop. Don’t do it God.
Give these people more time to turn back to you. He becomes an intercessor. The
role of a prophet is to mediate between God and his people. To represent him to
them, through sharing his words and what he has received, but also representing
the people before God in fervent prayer.
How do we respond to the necessity of judgement and the
possibility of mercy. It calls us to pray. To pray for those who do not know
God who have not come to put their trust in his son Jesus. To beseech God to
reveal himself to them, to forgive and to stop, to give them more time to
repent and return. As I was reading for this message a couple of things came
up. Hard things to say…one commentator said the church spends more time praying
for the physical wellbeing of those within its community than the eternal
wellbeing of those outside it. Like Amaziah our thoughts can be focused on the
wellbeing and blessing of our people, over the plight of the world. In 1 Timothy
Paul encourages us to offer all kinds of prayer for all people because God does
not anyone to perish. I don’t think it means we stop praying for our own, but
there needs to be a balance. The second was Amos shows us that we do not give
up on praying for those in danger we must be persistent in prayer. Maybe you’ve
been praying for someone for years and years don’t give up. Even as Amos saw
the inevitability of judgement still he prayed for God’s mercy. Gary Smith pts it quite eloquently when he
says “ give up on Nobody! Pray still! Lay none out for spiritual death until
they are laid out naturally dead.” Amos tells us that such prayer is heard in
heaven and that god responds… That such prayer is impactful. God listens.
We pray knowing that we have the example of the perfect
intercessor, advocate in Jesus Christ. Who laid down his life for us, took on
our sin our wrongdoing on the cross and was able to impart his righteousness to
us. The one who is the possibility of mercy in the certainty of judgement.
The other thing that Amos does of course is he goes and
tells what God has shown him. He is not just a man of prayer but of action as
well. Now I’m not suggesting that we go round with the sort of stinging words
that Amos had for Amaziah. But Amos’ heart and words were for people to come
back to know God and to follow his ways. It is at the core of our gospel. That
we have all fallen short of the glory of God and deserve God’s wrath, however in
Jesus life and death and resurrection God has made a way for us to know
forgiveness and new life. God will put his holy spirit within those who turn to
Jesus and believe to enable and empower us to live a life that reflects God’s
goodness and justice. It’s a message that people need to hear. When you look at
the New Testament you see Peter and Paul, lead by the Holy Spirit, communicate
that in different ways to different people groups, connecting with what I at
the heart of their culture.
How do we live with this tension between the necessity of
judgement and the possibility of mercy. It should call us to love, a love like Amos’s
whose heart is broken by the things that break god’s heart. It should call us
to pray for our world and its people that they would come to know the
possibility of God’s mercy in Jesus Christ. This passage show us this prayer is
effective. It calls us to be prepared to proclaim as God has spoken.
