Amos 1:1-2:5 The God of Justice

Amos 1:1-2:5

What kind of God do you want to worship? In today’s post-modern society we can design our own God to whatever works for us. So, what kind of God do you want? In our “God supermarket” you have Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam, New Age spiritualism, and Humanism, which normally carries with it Scientifism, feminism and materialism, and, of course, the choose-your-own Christianity. Want a socially active Jesus – here’s your church. Want a lovey-dovey Jesus – here’s your church. Want an angry Jesus, whipping you and telling you to do better – here’s your church. Or if Jesus is too scary, how about his mother? Here’s your church.

The God of the Bible is none of those. He is not an idol you can put back in the cupboard. He is not a God who you can placate (calm down, sooth) by being a good boy or good girl, or attending a few religious meetings. He is not the Force who is great to have when life is good or when you need some help (“Use the Force, Luke”) – but then you can turn off when you want to do something a little bit shabby. He is not the God who is disinterested, the God who does not care about what is going on in the world. He is the God who is there. He is the God who speaks. And he is the God who demands a response.

Am 1:1–2 (NLT) This message was given to Amos, a shepherd from the town of Tekoa in Judah. He received this message in visions two years before the earthquake, when Uzziah was king of Judah and Jeroboam II, the son of Jehoash, was king of Israel. 2 This is what he saw and heard: “The LORD’s voice will roar from Zion and thunder from Jerusalem! The lush pastures of the shepherds will dry up; the grass on Mount Carmel will wither and die.”

It is a message of warning, a message of judgement. A message that our God is a God of justice, and will not let injustice go unpunished.

I only have 2 points tonight:

1. The unjust nations

2. The just God.

1. The unjust nations

Damascus (Syria), Gaza (Philistines), Tyre, Ammon, and Moab – these were the nations surrounding ancient Israel. And all have sinned again and again: treating people as crops to be mowed down (threshed), or sold into slavery for profit, or disposed of as rubbish, pregnant women murdered, and even the bones of the dead are dishonored. Things we know are wrong, but we do it anyway. These nations were treating each other badly, hating each other and being hated in return. And God says I will not let them go unpunished!

What will he do? I will send down fire on their walls…, and [their] fortresses will be destroyed… I will destroy the king, and the people will go as captives.

God is not watching us from a distance. He is not the grandfather on the throne, looking down on us with a kind but confused expression. He is the KING on the throne. With all authority on Heaven and earth. He is the Maker of Heaven and Earth. He spoke the universe and everything in it into existence.

And, crucially, He made men and women, human beings, in his own image. Every one of us is valuable, whether we are an unborn baby or 101 years old. We have an innate (in-built) value. We are God’s children, the pinnacle of God’s creation. We are eternal beings, different from the rest of creation in that we are spiritual as well as physical.

The writer C.S. Lewis, in his sermon “The Weight of Glory” says this about us: “It is a serious thing to live in a society of possible gods and goddesses, to remember that the dullest most uninteresting person you talk to may one day be a creature which, if you saw it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship; or else a horror and a corruption such as you now meet, if at all, only in a nightmare…
There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilizations - these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub, and exploit - immortal horrors or everlasting splendours.”

Can you see why it is right to be outraged when people treat people badly? Why Christians have always been at the forefront of social change, whether it’s William Wilberforce trying to stop the slave trade, Florence Nightingale serving in the Crimean war and founding nursing, John Howard reforming prisons to better care for the prisoners, George Müller who cared for over 10 000 orphans, or Martin Luther opposing the Pope selling “God’s” forgiveness (“indulgences”) in order to build a really big church.

It is a natural outworking of the gospel. Because we are loved and accepted by God, we will love and accept others – however “low” or “high” in society they may be.

So Amos warns of God’s righteous judgement on the cruelty of the nations surrounding Israel. What they did was evil. From chapter 1:

Damascus beat down my people in Gilead as grain is threshed with iron sledges. Literally rode them over with a big threshing machine as if they were nothing but crops to be harvested. Like driving a combine harvester into a crowd of people.
Gaza sent whole villages into exile, selling them as slaves to Edom; along with Tyre, who broke their treaty of brotherhood with Israel, selling whole villages as slaves to Edom. The people of Edom have sinned again and again, and I will not let them go unpunished! They chased down their relatives, the Israelites, with swords, showing them no mercy. In their rage, they slashed them continually and were unrelenting in their anger. Gaza, Tyre, and Edom raided villages in Israel and carried off everyone, men, women and children, and sold them as slaves - just like the evil African slave trade in the 1800’s. The Ammonites ripped open pregnant women with their swords. Wanton cruelty in war. Killing simply for the evil pleasure of killing. And Moab? Well they desecrated the bones of Edom’s king, burning them to ashes.

That last one might seem a bit out of place – not quite the same as brutally murdering unborn babies and their mothers - until you learn that the people of Moab and of Edom both (wrongly) believed that you could not be raised to eternal life if your body was destroyed – so for them to burn someone’s bones was a real act of hatred: they were trying to stop that person being resurrected, wishing for his or hers eternal death. Moab and Edom hated each other so much that they would haul out their king and burn his bones to ashes. This was all-out vengeful war.

So, what kind of God do you want? A Buddha who simply says life is suffering, matter is not important, rise above these acts, they mean nothing. Myanmar (Burma) is a Buddhist country – currently murdering whole villages of the minority Karen people (and others). Is this truly the Path of Enlightenment?
Or the current God of Norway which is atheism and secularism, where people are just random collections of cells, blind DNA reaching out into the void. “Give life your own meaning” is the message of humanism. Well, the Ammonites gave their life meaning by ripping pregnant women in half. How do you argue against that from a humanistic point of view? It’s just my opinion vs. yours.

How can we be satisfied with a worldview that allows such blatant injustice? When we read these words, we become angry, saddened, grieved. Why? Because we’re random DNA? Because we just need to “rise above” suffering and not let it touch us? Because the Life Force is blind and powerless? Because it’s their truth, equally valid? No!

We need the God of the Bible, the Only True God, who roars his anger at such blatant injustice. The nations are unjust.

2. The just God.

13 This is what the Lord says: “The people of Ammon have sinned again and again, and I will not let them go unpunished! When they attacked Gilead to extend their borders, they ripped open pregnant women with their swords. 14 So I will send down fire on the walls of Rabbah, and all its fortresses will be destroyed. The battle will come upon them with shouts, like a whirlwind in a mighty storm. 15 And their king and his princes will go into exile together,” says the Lord.

We live in an evil world. In Myanmar, genocide. In Sudan, warlords are continually attacking each other, while villages are burned, men: father, brothers, husbands, have to run for their lives or risk being forced to become soldiers. In Eritrea churches are shut down and people have to run for their lives. In the US and Australia last year gunmen entered schools and gunned down children and teachers. In India a woman on a bus is gang-raped for 2½ hours. In Norway 2604 cases of family violence were registered in 2011 alone. In Kristin’s class a young girl and her mother had to be placed in protective custody for a few months due to the threat of violence. An evil world.

The great news of Amos is that God sees all this and will bring them to justice. We rejoice when we read those words “they will not go unpunished”. Myanmar has sinned again and again and I will not let them go unpunished. The Sudanese warlords have sinned again and again and I will not let them go unpunished. Norway has sinned again and again and I will not let them go unpunished.

These nations probably thought that they were getting away with what they were doing. But God’s warning is stark. In 732BC, Damascus was wiped out. In 734BC Gaza was no more, followed by Ashdod in 711BC and Ekron in 701 BC. Tyre and Edom were swallowed up by Assyria; Moab and the Ammonites simply disappear from history.

And what about us? What do we think we’re getting away with, that God doesn’t notice?

In preparing this I had a great difficulty in knowing how to apply it. Because this is written to Israelites in 770BC, into their context, their understanding. We can’t just use it to trumpet today’s social causes! When we’re reading the Bible we first need to understand what it meant for the original hearers. And the further away we are from them (particularly before Jesus is fully revealed, like now) the harder we need to work at understanding it. I am not Amos, and you are not from Israel, Damascus, Gaza or Ammon!

So how do we understand this? What should we take away from this?

Well, there are two timeless applications, because they teach us about the character of God, and so are just as relevant to us in 2013 as it was to the Middle Easterners in 770BC!

The first timeless application is this:
God is a just God.

As we’ve read “they have sinned again and again”. God is warning that his patience is running out and he will judge. He cannot not judge evil acts. It is part of his character – just like He’s made it part of ours. We cannot help getting angry at slavery, and cruelty in war, and murder of the helpless. And when we do, we reflect his good character, his good justice. God is a just God.

Before we look at the second timeless application, I want us to think a little bit about what this means for us in 2013. What does “God is just” mean? What are things a modern day Amos might target to cause us to see our need to repent and turn to God for forgiveness?

I think one of the most obvious is allowing a person’s value be defined by whether they are wanted or unwanted. If a woman wants her baby, that baby is afforded full protection under law, is considered a human being, and given the full extent of medical help and treatment no matter how young. If her baby is unwanted, that same baby suddenly has no legal rights or status whatsoever, and the medical facilities that previously stood ready to save them now are used to kill them and dispose of their bodies.

Furthermore, we can screen for disabilities, and kill disabled people before they are even born. Yay us.

What do you think Amos’ oracle would have been against Norway in 2013? What would God think of our murdering of the weakest and most helpless in society because they’re burdensome?

(And what if you have aborted your baby? Statistically at least one of us here has. Remember that Jesus came not to condemn, but to save. Seek forgiveness in the arms of Christ. Acknowledge your sin and turn to Him. He died to take away your guilt and pain. Please talk to me or one of the other leaders and we can help you through this.)

Or the great big god of GREED. Materialism, consumerism. Buy, buy, buy because that will make you happy. Get this new thing, this new gadget, these new clothes – that will make you happy. Every picture of shopping is a happy woman with loads of packets. And we don’t care where it is made, how the workers are being treated – just as long as it’s cheap. Isn’t this perilously close to slavery?

Or how we treat our old people, or our children, or our environment, or....

I could say: Stop going on holiday and buying a new car and the best skis and that new camera and instead invest in people. Give to the work of the church. Quit your job and be a mother and look after your kids. Invest in people, not things.

But that’s not enough to satisfy God’s justice. There’s no gospel in that. Those may be good things, but they’re not the right response to a holy God. Becoming slightly less unholy is not enough! Christianity is not a points system, where giving kr1000 to the church gains you 5 points and 50000 points gives you access to Heaven.

Thankfully the second timeless application from Amos chapter 1 is that:
God is merciful.

Notice that Amos is preaching in 770BC – and the first nation to fall was Gaza in 734BC – over 30 YEARS later. They were given 30 years to repent, to change their ways, to ask the Lord God Almighty to forgive them. They could have. Jonah preached to the Ninevites and the whole city repented and were forgiven.

There is mercy for all those who repent (that is, turn away from evil and turn towards God) and accept the mercy of God. That is the only solution for an evil and corrupt people. Education won’t change their hearts – they’ll just find new ways to kill more efficiently. We need God’s mercy to change us from the inside out, to change us from people who so easily go along with slavery and murder and people being exploited, to people who are just and merciful.

How? How could a just God be merciful to such evil and barbaric people? Well, Amos didn’t know – he just had to trust God’s Word that somehow he could do this! His hearers did not know. But we know. “Father, forgive them” cried Jesus on the cross. That forgiveness echoes down throughout the Bible, and as Rom 3:26 says God left the sins committed beforehand (i.e. OT) unpunished and poured that out on Jesus on the Cross – so God is both just, and the one who can forgive, because he himself pays the penalty for our sins. Wow!

Just one more note on God’s mercy. Part of his mercy is allowing a limited amount of evil to take place, which is what we see in our world. And yes, it’s a frightening and sobering thought that this evil we see is limited – Revelation says that only a third of evil has been released. We should not be living in Norway in relative peace and quiet knowing the state of our hearts! Thank God for his mercy in limiting our expression of evil to only that which is necessary to alert us to the fact that we need to repent and turn to him.
If we lived in a paradise, if God did not reveal his anger from Heaven by allowing to sin as we want to (Rom 1:18) – which of us would repent? We would none of us turn to God, none of realising we are in rebellion against him, and we would all die forever. This life is but a fleeting glimpse, God has a bigger picture in mind, and so alerts us to the fact that we are heading for disaster, and eternal disaster.

Amos is a loud and clear warning. God is just. Seek forgiveness before it is too late. A forgiveness that is only found in the death of Jesus.

The nations are unjust.

God is just.