Who, Me? - Amos 3:1-6

As we left off last time, I asked us to look at how we, individually, pursue worship. We have a personal call to a personal relationship and we have an individual responsibility to respond. I want to lead off today's post about Chapter 3 of Amos with a section from The Expositor's Bible Commentary.

" A summons to hear the 'word of the Lord' introduces this oracle. The summons is directed against the 'whole family I brought up out of Egypt' and thus seems to include Judah as well as Israel....."
...."The pronouncement of judgment, addressed primarily to the northern kingdom, warned Judah and Israel that their election by Yahweh in itself was insufficient ground for thinking they were nationally secure; for God demanded personal obedience as well."

When God, through Amos, says to His people "you only have I chosen" Amos uses the word yada which is a word which connotes not a general knowing, but an intimate foreknowledge or purposing. God had set Israel aside for His purpose, to glorify Him, and it was not just on a national level - it was on a personal level as well, just as He "knew" and consecrated Jeremiah, He also knows and consecrates us to His purpose. He did that to the people of Israel, not just the nation. Their punishment was due to their failure to live up to the consecration and privilege in the world. With great privilege comes great responsibility. It was Israel's responsibility to live into their divine purpose. They failed to do so, no matter that God had repeatedly come to their aid and provided ways out of the messes that they had gotten themselves into. The people of Israel were to point the world toward their God - to glorify Him through their praise and their actions. Isaiah 29:13 (echoed in Matthew 15:8 by Jesus) says:

'The Lord says: "These people come near to me with their mouth and honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. Their worship of me is made up only of rules taught by men."

As we saw in the last blog, the people had learned how to dot the i's and cross the t's of worship, but it was empty and not reflected in their lives. There is an individual responsibility to the worship of God. We have to give up our hearts, to become a new life, to agree to walk completely with the Lord. In another book I am reading right now, it speaks of the internal change that has to happen before we become the new birth. We must live out our worship, and not because we are following the rules, but because we have chosen to accept the divine purpose and responsibility that comes with the blessing of being sons and daughters of the King. Many people hesitate to make that choice because they are afraid of what God will ask of them. Well, he will ask you to step into what He had in mind in His 'yada' - His knowledge of us, His purpose, His design. We will find a better fit in this than in anything else we can come up with! The consequences of accepting His promise and then refusing to walk in it will end in disaster for us. There is cause and effect written here. "Do two walk together unless they have agreed to do so? Does a bird just randomly stumble into a trap if there is no bait? Does a trap spring if there is nothing there to trip it? (paraphrase vs 3-5) If we agree to walk with God and then fail to do so, there will be consequences, whether from God or just the logical outcome of poor decisions. Here, however, we are dealing strictly with the result of choosing image over relationship. I believe that it cost Israel their status as the chosen nation. (Matt. 22: 1-8, Luke 14:16-24)

We have the same opportunity. When we come to Christ and covenant with Him, we are agreeing to walk in His way, not ours. This may be difficult, even more so when we try to hold on to our old self, listening to the lies of the enemy, keeping us from walking in the blessing. We have to take personal stock of how we see our walk. Do we choose to walk with Him, or are we doing so out of societal norms, or because that's the way we were raised, or we are doing it for our kids? It is of critical importance that we choose covenant, that we choose the walk. We don't get the privilege because we belong to a nation - if that was not true of Israel then, why would it be true of us today? We are called into God's blessing, set apart to be holy people, to live a life that glorifies Him, to walk in relationship with Christ. But we have a personal responsibility to walk in obedience to His purpose, understanding that His intimate knowledge of us, and our obedient relationship with Him on a daily basis will allow us to live out our lives as His chosen people.

Some Things Never Change

I've been gone awhile and haven't been able to update, but here is the next installment on Amos. I have finished the book, and read quite a bit on the general commentaries and the critical commentaries and have learned quite a bit about the historical context. I was struck by the fact that, as they say, the more things change, the more they stay the same. As I began in the last entry, the people of Israel had become very adept at putting on the appearance of worship. But God is not fooled - He saw how they behaved in their everyday lives, oppressing the poor, selling them off, trading them for as little as a pair of sandals. You see, at that time, the poor had little recourse to combat injustice - the wealthy ran the court system, like everything else. Does that sound familiar? One commentary I read said that the line in chapter 2 verse 7:

"They trample on the heads of the poor as upon the dust of the ground and deny justice to the oppressed"

was an indictment of the wealthy, that they actually coveted even the dust that the poor heaped on their heads as a sign of sorrow. This is the sin of Israel - that the wealthy used the poor to gain increasing wealth, no matter the consequences to those they use all the while "going to church" and pretending holiness. Today, especially in America, there is a great rift between the haves and the have-nots. I was thinking about this the other day in the light of the current economic situation and it rings all too familiar. I look at how people were taking advantage of through predatory lending, how people were used to create great wealth for some while bankrupting others (Bernie Madoff, Joe Nacchio) - with no remorse. Israel is condemned for this among other sins such as not only ignoring the warnings of the prophets, but telling the prophets to be quiet. These people had no desire to hear from God - at the same time they went to worship as prescribed and perhaps believing they were the righteous, though I fail to see how it could be possible that they were sincere in that belief. Read God's consequence in verses 13 to 16 of Chapter 2 - not a pretty sight.

We are in danger in today's church of being in the same place. Take a look at how some people come to church each Sunday as a social convention and then, as they say, "live like hell" the rest of the week. I would even call us to look at the teachings within the church such as "ask and you shall receive," using God as some kind of cosmic slot machine - if you put in the right things, God has to pay off to meet your fortune. This is too common in many of the health and wealth preachings that attract too many. Look at how many older and poor people are targeted by these teachings and send in their money to ministries that promise great blessings from God. Some are desperate and have hopes that giving to the ministry will save them from their financial situations. Woe to those "preachers" who make their fortune on the heads of these people! Will they suffer any less consequence than that described by Amos? Then, if the people who give don't get their reward, it's because they didn't have enough faith. As Pastor Win said several weeks ago, find in scripture where that is the primary order of things. It's more of an escape clause for those selling the "investment Jesus" model. The giving of tithes and offerings is an obedience thing, a commitment thing, a support for the ministry of the Word, and not a means of securing your personal financial security. These are tools to help ministry work. Unfortunately, sometimes the physical ministry overwhelms the spiritual ministry and money, rather than service, becomes the driving force. Surely, in today's world, financial support of ministry is important, but it needs to be held in proper perspective.

God reminds the people of Israel, through His prophet Amos, the history of God's commitment to His chosen people - and then condemns them for their response and corruption of the relationship. The first two chapters call the people on their sins. Chapter three gives them a lesson in cause and effect. That is where we will start next time. In the meantime, take a good look at how you live out your worship on a day to day basis. How do you treat people, especially the "great unwashed?" Do you just throw money at a ministry and not "dirty your hands" with the day to day relationship with the poor, wounded and oppressed, or do you jump in there and serve? We are called to fight social injustice, and not just in the political realm - we are to serve. That is true worship. Are you a worshiper?

From the Frying Pan and into the Fire

I have begun my study of the book of Amos. Briefly - God is not real happy with His people, and sends Amos to tell them about it. As I talked about in the last blog, prophets don't tend to be tolerated well by the people in power. In Israel, the nation was a theocracy, so God's word has implications in the direction of the nation, not just the church, as we see it today. Let me set the stage:

Israel was, by this time, divided into the Northern Kingdom of Israel and the Southern Kingdom of Judah. In Amos' time, they had been relieved of occupation by Damascus (Syria). They had become wealthy. Therein, apparently, lay the problem. The nation was rich and had need of nothing, not even God. They had rid themselves of the Baals, but there was another god in its place – wealth and good fortune. This they kept at all costs. They oppressed their own people, looked on the poor as something to be trod upon, cast away or sold off. Elijah had begun the process of cleaning up the worship of the people, culminated by Elisha (and Jehu), slaughtering the priests of Baal, but they had not cleaned the hearts of the people. Worship became a focus; the people followed the rules of worship, but there hearts were far from God, and He was about to address that. God is about to, through Amos, warn the people about coming to His house with their hands full of offerings while their daily life was one of social injustice. Seems we are in a very similar place in today’s American church.

-Stay Tuned