Amos 5:6-14
6 Seek the LORD and live, or he will sweep through the house of Joseph like a fire; it will devour, and Bethel will have no one to quench it.
7 You who turn justice into bitterness and cast righteousness to the ground
8 (he who made the Pleiades and Orion, who turns blackness into dawn and darkens day into night, who calls for the waters of the sea and pours them out over the face of the land-- the LORD is his name--
9 he flashes destruction on the stronghold and brings the fortified city to ruin),
10 you hate the one who reproves in court and despise him who tells the truth.
11 You trample on the poor and force him to give you grain. Therefore, though you have built stone mansions, you will not live in them; though you have planted lush vineyards, you will not drink their wine.
12 For I know how many are your offenses and how great your sins. You oppress the righteous and take bribes and you deprive the poor of justice in the courts.
13 Therefore the prudent man keeps quiet in such times, for the times are evil.
14 Seek good, not evil, that you may live. Then the LORD God Almighty will be with you, just as you say he is.
(NIV)
We are continuing our study of the Minor Prophets and today we turn our attention to Amos.
Amos was from a small town about 12 miles south of Jerusalem, a village resting in the hills, a place called Tekoa.
He is sometimes called a “bib-overalls” prophet. A blue-collar prophet. He was, after all, a shepherd and a worker who tended sycamore trees.
But I think he was more like what we would today call a CEO. He is described in the Old Testament as a shepherd, but in Hebrew, the particular word that is used here is not the common word for shepherd, but an unusual one that refers to more than just a single individual taking care of a flock – it’s more like a rancher – one person supervising a number of shepherds and flocks. He’s also a grower of sycamore trees. So he has a sort of diversified industry.
He strikes me as a self-made millionaire type of person. Maybe not that rich, but someone who is an entrepreneur. Someone with very little formal education, whose worked hard all of his life, and who always works hard as he has moved up the ladder of success.
The one thing he is not is a professional religious leader.
He is not a seminary-trained preacher.
As he puts it (Amos 7:14-15), “I was neither a prophet nor a prophet’s son, but I was a shepherd, and I also took care of sycamore-fig trees. But the LORD took me from tending the flock and said to me, ’Go, prophesy to my people Israel.’”
He was an unlikely prophetic voice. Most of the prophets and religious leaders in that period, around the mid 8th century BC, were trained theologians. But Amos was not.
He was a businessman. He was a layperson.
He was an amateur prophet.
He was also a Southerner, called by God to preach in the Northern Kingdom of Israel. And at that time things were going well in Israel.
Or at least they seemed to be.
The economy was doing well.
Trade was booming.
There was a sense of peace in the land.
And the religious life of the nation also appeared to be in good shape, at least superficially.
Amos saw that the outward appearance of success and wealth was not all that it seemed to be.
The bountiful trade had led to an oppressive social pyramid, with few at the top.
The religion of the people was a religion in name and form alone, without any sense of moral obligation.
Amos was just an ordinary man who was able to see that things were not right between the nation of Israel and God.
But more importantly, he was an ordinary man who saw injustice and did something about it.
So without any formal training, he begins to preach.
And the message he preaches is one of judgment.
1. Announcements of Judgment
Judgment – that’s a bad word today. We don’t like it. It makes us feel uncomfortable.
It has become common for us to think of God as a loving parent who would never, ever discipline His children.
We talk about how God loves us, which is true.
We talk about how God accepts us, which is true.
We talk about how God forgives and has compassion on us, which is true.
But it is also true that God, like any loving parent, has expectations of us.
My earthly father and I had a great relationship. I never ever doubted his love for me.
But there were times when I did things – and of course, it’s none of your business what I did – when I angered him, disappointed him, frustrated him, and provoked him to take disciplinary action against me.
It was not in spite of his love, but because of his love that my Dad became angry, disappointed, frustrated or provoked to take disciplinary action against me.
We picture God as a loving, but weak and careless parent. He loves us, but never becomes angry with us.
Amos comes busting through the Old Testament with a message of a loving God who sometimes, like my Dad, is angered, disappointed, frustrated and provoked to take disciplinary action.
In the first two chapters of the book of Amos, there is a literary device that the prophet uses.
“For three sins of – so and so – and for four” -- And the fourth sin is kind of the “last straw” for God.
Over and over, all around, nation after nation has pushed God to the limit, each one committing the sin of the last straw.
The first of these is in Amos 1:3, “For three sins of Damascus, even for four, I will not turn back. Because she attacked Gilead …”
Then in verse six Amos says, "For three sins of Gaza, even for four, I will not turn back. Because she took captive whole communities and sold them to Edom…”
In chapter 2, Amos says (Amos 2:6-7), "For three sins of Israel, even for four, I will not turn back. They sell the righteous for silver, and the needy for a pair of sandals. They trample on the heads of the poor as upon the dust of the ground and deny justice to the oppressed. Father and son use the same girl and so profane my holy name.”
There is a point at which we push God so that he “will not turn back.” We commit one sin, then another, and another, and eventually, we push God and provoke in him his judgment.
Amos is preaching at the same time as the prophet Hosea, another Minor Prophet. And Hosea captures the attitude of the people in his book when he writes,
Hosea 6:1-5
1 "Come, let us return to the LORD. He has torn us to pieces but he will heal us; he has injured us but he will bind up our wounds.
2 After two days he will revive us; on the third day he will restore us, that we may live in his presence.
3 Let us acknowledge the LORD; let us press on to acknowledge him. As surely as the sun rises, he will appear; he will come to us like the winter rains, like the spring rains that water the earth."
That is the voice of the people, but then Hosea records God’s voice…
4 "What can I do with you, Ephraim? What can I do with you, Judah? Your love is like the morning mist, like the early dew that disappears.
5 Therefore I cut you in pieces with my prophets, I killed you with the words of my mouth; my judgments flashed like lightning upon you.
We have that kind of attitude. God will always forgive us. We can do what we want and he will accept us, revive us and bind up our wounds.
But Amos suggests otherwise.
In the opening two chapters of his book, Amos repeatedly uses that literary device, “For three sins, and for four…I will not turn back.” And then Amos says, God declares “I will send fire” upon my people. A symbol of judgment.
2. Reasons For Judgment
As the prophet moves into chapter 3 of his book, he begins to explain the reasons why judgment is needed.
The people of Israel hate integrity, justice and compassion. They arrogantly sit in luxury while the poor suffer all around them. There is sexual immorality. People are not making and keeping marital commitments to one another.
Well, you get the idea. Amos has a whole list of sins here that the society is guilty of. But those sins are not the reason why God sends his judgment.
The real reason is so that the people will turn back to God. Unfortunately, in Amos it doesn’t work.
In Amos chapter 4, the prophet uses another repetitive literary device to drive home the fact that God sends one judgment after another, not to give hateful punishment, but to give loving discipline in order to bring people back to him.
Amos 4:6-9
6 "I gave you empty stomachs in every city and lack of bread in every town, yet you have not returned to me," declares the LORD.
7 "I also withheld rain from you when the harvest was still three months away. I sent rain on one town, but withheld it from another. One field had rain; another had none and dried up.
8 People staggered from town to town for water but did not get enough to drink, yet you have not returned to me," declares the LORD.
9 "Many times I struck your gardens and vineyards, I struck them with blight and mildew. Locusts devoured your fig and olive trees, yet you have not returned to me," declares the LORD.
(NIV)
The reason for the judgment is that we should return to God.
There are two things that we should be learning from Amos.
First, judgment is not evil. God loves us enough to send disciplining judgment on us. Judgment that will help us to refocus our attention back onto Him.
3. Our Call To Proclaim Judgment
But a second thing we can learn is the example of Amos himself.
Amos saw injustice in the land. He saw immorality. He saw the poor being trampled upon.
Amos is part of the economic structure. He is part of the establishment, part of the system. He may not be rich, but he is not poor. He tends to lots of fruit trees. He is a shepherd, but not of one flock. He’s more like a rancher, overseeing many shepherds and many flocks. He is part of an economic system that oppresses the poor, takes advantage of people, and he speaks out against it.
He is not trained to do this. He is not a professional theologian. But he knows God. He knows right and wrong. And he sees injustice and takes action.
That is one of the key lessons about Amos – that when we look at Amos we see that all of us are called to be amateur prophets.
We are to be politically engaged in our culture – to be amateur prophets like Amos.
We can do this in so many different ways –
The way we cast our votes,
Some of us run political office,
Some of us write letters to the editor to be that prophetic voice in our society,
We join in boycotts,
Write letters of protest,
Bring food here to the church to be given to the poor --
And so many other ways we can join together to fight the corruption that is in our own community, work against injustice, help the poor in our neighborhoods…
This was what Amos was called to do, and this is what all of us are called to do.
In Amos there is this wonderful verse in chapter 5, verse, 24, “Let justice roll on like a river, righteousness like a never-failing stream!”
The contemporary of Amos was Hosea, who said in his book (Hosea 12:6), “Return to your God; maintain love and justice.”
The prophet Isaiah said in his book, (Isa 58:6-8), the kind of life and worship God wants of his people is “to loose the chains of injustice and untie the cords of the yoke, to set the oppressed free and break every yoke … share your food with the hungry and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter.”
Another one of the Minor Prophets that we will look at in a few weeks is Micah. He may said it best of all (Micah 6:8) -- “what does the LORD require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.”
This is a job for all of us.
It is not just a job for the professional, but for all of us.
Like Amos, we are all called to be that amateur prophet, speaking the word of God, calling on our community to “let justice roll on like a river.”
Amos – just an average guy. Minding his own business. But everywhere he looked, he was reminded of the injustice in his community.
He would be walking along and see a basket of fruit. Nothing special. Just a basket of fruit. And in his soul he would hear the voice of God.
(Amos 8:2)
"What do you see, Amos?" he asked.
"A basket of ripe fruit," I answered.
Then the LORD said to me, "The time is ripe for my people Israel; I will spare them no longer.”
Another time, Amos saw a man building a wall, taking a plumb line, which is a device to measure the straightness of a wall. And in his soul, Amos thought about how the people don’t measure up, the society is not well constructed. (Amos 7:8).
Amos sets a perfect example for us, to always be on watch, always on guard, always examining our society and always calling our community back to God.
4. Promises Following Judgment
We do this because we love our God, and we love our community.
We think of judgment as an evil thing. A bad thing. A condemnation.
But it’s not. It’s an act of love that seeks to correct and bring us back on track.
Every great prophet ended with an encouraging word. Amos is the same way. In the final chapter of his book, he speaks softly about how the day will come when the people will listen and return to God.
God promises to reinstate the Davidic line (9:11-12), to renew the land (9:13) and to restore the people (9:14-15). In the last lines of the book, Amos declares (Amos 9:13-15), "The days are coming," declares the LORD, "when the reaper will be overtaken by the plowman and the planter by the one treading grapes. New wine will drip from the mountains and flow from all the hills. I will bring back my exiled people Israel; they will rebuild the ruined cities and live in them. They will plant vineyards and drink their wine; they will make gardens and eat their fruit. I will plant Israel in their own land, never again to be uprooted from the land I have given them," says the LORD your God.”
You see, that is what makes God’s judgment against his people positive, and not negative. That’s why the judgment of God is not an evil thing, but a good thing.
It always begins AND ENDS with the love of God.
Conclusion
When you walk around, what do you see?
Amos would see fruit baskets and think about how the nation is ripe for judgment.
Amos would see plumb lines and think about how the society was not well constructed.
What do you see?
Do you newspaper filled with articles about greedy CEOs who built fortunes at the expense of workers and their retirement funds?
Do you see a community filled with corruption and sour politics?
Do you see the poor suffering?
When you see them, are you doing anything about it?
Are you speaking out?
Amos did.
Are we?
Copyright 2002 – Maynard Pittendreigh
All Rights Reserved
