Amos: The Lion Roars

Have you ever heard a lion roar? I mean, really roar? Not those videos on youtube which are mostly lions “coughing” or “barking” – I mean a real roar.

I heard one back in 1996 and I will never forget it! We were on the border of the Kruger National Park in South Africa, looking up onto a hill. Up on the hill came a herd of gazelle (deers) running for their lives. Because they were being hunted by lions. We could hear them “barking” to each other – first from this side, then to the other. Exciting! (If you’re not a gazelle!).
Then suddenly this male Lion appeared on the crest of the hill, barking to the other lions. Then he turned toward us – maybe he smelled us or heard us, I don’t know - and paused to look at us. Then he opened his mouth and let out a full-throated roar.
This was the real thing. Lion roars can be heard up to 8 kms away. We were about 500metres away. Between us was a fence, then another fence, then a deep railway cutting with railway track, then another fence, and then another, and THEN the hill upon which he stood. And we were petrified (scared stiff). And then we all took a few steps back towards the car – such was the power just of his roar. In that moment it felt like he would effortlessly run down the hill, smash right through the fences, leap over the cutting, through the other fences, and devour us with one single bite. Such power.

That’s what Amos is trying to get us to feel. God, the Lion of Judah is roaring from Zion! And he’s roaring in fury, in anger, in judgement. And the right response is to be afraid. To run, to hide, to find some shelter from this Almighty, blazing, fury.

Tonight’s talk is another “guide-book” talk – like when you visit a city for the first time, it’s useful to have a guide book telling you about the history, the key spots, the best restaurants, the places to avoid, the best views. This talk is your guidebook to Amos (which I hope you’ve read this week – if not, start this week). So we’re going to look at some of the major themes as follows:

1. Can God keep his promises?

2. Sinful Israel

3. The Lion Roars!

4. The Lion shelters his cubs

1. Can God keep his promises?

Whenever we start a new book, particularly in the Old Testament (the part of the Bible before Jesus was born), it’s worth asking the question “where are we now?” Just like when you visit a new town you’ll grab the map or the GPS and have a look to see where you’ve got to, and where you are going. This is the “map” part of the talk!

So let’s look at the map, and see where we are. Am 1:1 (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.

Uzziah and Jeroboam II reigned around 770BC. This was 200 years after the Golden Age of Israel under King David and then his son Solomon. It was about 160 years after the near civil war which split Israel into two: the Northern Kingdom, called, confusingly, just Israel; and the Southern Kingdom, called Judah.
Amos himself is from the Southern Kingdom, Judah, but is sent to prophesy primarily to the Northern Kingdom, Israel, and its king Jeroboam II. Bet they liked that! (no!)

Israel was materially wealthy – they had control of significant trade routes at the time – but spiritually they were in serious trouble. They had had a succession of evil kings, who set up temples and altars to false gods all over the country, and refused to let the people travel to the Temple – because the Temple was in Jerusalem, in the Southern Kingdom of Judah!

That’s the situation at them time. The question any Israelites who loved the Lord God, if there were any, would be asking is “What is happening to God’s promises?”
The people of Israel (and Judah) were called “the people of God”. They were the descendants of Abraham, of Isaac, and Jacob (who later was renamed Israel). God’s great promise to Abraham was of a great people, in the land of Canaan, under His good rule, who would bless all the nations of the world.
At this point they are a great people, in the land of Canaan – but disobeying God’s rule, and certainly not blessing the nations. Instead, they are just like all the nations around them, running after wealth and comfort, trampling on the poor and weak, cheating in business, and even worshipping the same false gods!

What is happening to God’s promises? Amos gives us that answer. Israel is on shaky ground. They think that they can give God lip service, being outwardly religious, but their hearts being far from him. They think they can go to the synagogue (Jewish “church”) on a Saturday and be all pious and religious, and then the rest of the week run after money and power and leisure and pay no attention whatsoever to God. “I’ll live my life MY way” was the cry of the Israelite in the time of Amos.

Amos’ message is: God is not fooled. He sees what is in the heart, deep inside – not the mask we pretend to wear. The message of Amos is a warning, loud and long, to turn back to God before his patience runs out.

For the people were forgetting that God is the King. That he is sovereign, in control. He created the world with a word, and sustains it with his breath. So powerful is he. They thought that God depended on them, that somehow they had power over God – that because he had promised to bless the world through Israel that they were safe, no matter how they treated him. They thought he was a pussycat, to be toyed with. But he is a lion, the Lion, and his roar of anger is heard loud and long.

Foolish people, presuming on the kindness of God. Do you really think he, the Mighty God, is dependent on you? He will blow you away with a blast from his nostrils, he will bring up the Assyrian armies from the north and utterly wipe you out. 5:24 But let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.

We know that that is what happened. Israel was stubborn and refused to listen, ignoring God, and doing evil. So God did what he said he would do. In 722BC, only 50 years after Amos’ warning of judgement, God acted. The Assyrian army swept into the Northern Kingdom and utterly destroyed it. The people were carried off into captivity, never to return.

What of God’s promise? How would the Lord bless the world through the people of Israel if they were sinful and evil.

Ah, we get a little hint of that in the end. Am 9:11 (NLT) “In that day I will restore the fallen house of David. I will repair its damaged walls. From the ruins I will rebuild it and restore its former glory.”

The Lord will do something, not the people. He will restore the house of David. “House of David” is a reference to descendant of King David, and to the great promise made to David: that one of his descendants would be a good king, a great king, a perfect king – a King who would rule forever.
God always keeps his promises. His plan to bless the world through his king, King Jesus, the Christ, is still on track. God keeps his promises, and sinful people can no more stop his promises than a fly on the tracks can stop a freight train! God does what he says he will do, whether in judgement or salvation. God keeps his promises.

2. Sinful Israel

But what were Israel doing that was so bad? Why was God going to judge them? Well, for example Am 2:6–8 (NLT) This is what the LORD says: “The people of Israel have sinned again and again, and I will not let them go unpunished! They sell honourable people for silver and poor people for a pair of sandals. 7 They trample helpless people in the dust and shove the oppressed out of the way. Both father and son sleep with the same woman, corrupting my holy name. 8 At their religious festivals, they lounge in clothing their debtors put up as security. In the house of their gods, they drink wine bought with unjust fines.

They were sexually immoral, engaging in the slave trade, oppressing the weak, taking clothes from the poor as security and then wearing those clothes to church! They were extorting money (unjust fines) – making up reasons to demand money from people. They were using their strength for evil.

The women are no better. Am 4:1 (NLT) Listen to me, you fat cows living in Samaria, you women who oppress the poor and crush the needy, and who are always calling to your husbands, “Bring us another drink!”

Drunk, lazy women, abusing their husbands, refusing to look after their children, abandoning the home and responsibility for a life of luxury.

But they were very religious, very pious, outwardly “good” people. Am 4:4–5 (NLT) “Go ahead and offer sacrifices to the idols at Bethel. Keep on disobeying at Gilgal. Offer sacrifices each morning, and bring your tithes every three days. 5 Present your bread made with yeast as an offering of thanksgiving. Then give your extra voluntary offerings so you can brag about it everywhere! This is the kind of thing you Israelites love to do,” says the Sovereign LORD.

Making a big show of being religious or morally good. Giving generously and making everybody knows about how much you’re giving. Playing the part of the “good” Christian.

It’s easy to sit here and condemn the Israelites – and rightly so. We should be disgusted with their behaviour! But didn’t you notice some of their actions seemed, well, uncomfortably familiar? A bit too close to the way we live in Norway in 2013?

For example, don’t we too live for leisure – choosing the TV or Internet or sport or hunting or anything else instead of serving our Lord? Isn’t that the great god we worship: leisure. The freedom to do whatever I want, whenever I want.
No longer do we value hard work, serving our family, serving our church, our community. Nope! Now our dreams are sitting on a beach doing nothing. Being a fat cow, calling “bring us our drinks”. Our goals are “watch all the Oscar-nominated movies” instead of well, anything else!

Now leisure has its place – we are not machines who can keep on going and going without rest. In fact, the Lord made a day to rest, to relax, to stop work and to focus on Him. Today! The 7^th day. So rest is good. And in fact, the end goal of salvation is that everlasting Day of Rest, when we are going to be with God forever. But we’re not going to be sitting on our backsides for all eternity. No! We will be working with Him, creating, building, caring for the new Creation. And we can find glimpses of that true rest even here on earth. In working hard at your marriage, putting your sins to death, setting aside your selfishness, and serving your spouse: and you have a restful, joyful marriage. Work hard at your job and you have the satisfaction of a job well done. Spend time with your children and build that relationship – and you will have children who know you and love you. That desire for leisure, for rest – that’s a good desire, a God-given desire. We’re just looking in all the wrong places to satisfy that desire.

Just like Israel.

And just like Israel, the Lord will not put up with our laziness, greed, our selfishness, our abuse of women and children, and our empty religion.

3. The Lion Roars!

Am 8:11–14 (NLT) “The time is surely coming,” says the Sovereign LORD, “when I will send a famine on the land— not a famine of bread or water but of hearing the words of the LORD. 12 People will stagger from sea to sea and wander from border to border searching for the word of the LORD, but they will not find it. 13 Beautiful girls and strong young men will grow faint in that day, thirsting for the LORD’s word. 14 And those who swear by the shameful idols of Samaria— who take oaths in the name of the god of Dan and make vows in the name of the god of Beersheba— they will all fall down, never to rise again.”

Am 9:9–10 (NLT) “For I will give the command and will shake Israel along with the other nations as grain is shaken in a sieve, yet not one true kernel will be lost. 10 But all the sinners will die by the sword— all those who say, ‘Nothing bad will happen to us.’

“Wake up!” is the message of Amos. We live in the world’s most privileged country. We are rich and powerful, although small. We live in leisure, are moral, are generally “good” people. We pretty much have everything we need or even want. We are Israel in 770BC.
And we are being judged like Israel in 770BC. There is a famine in our land of hearing the word of the Lord. The gospel is shouted down, laughed at, mocked. Pastors are afraid to preach, and so they dull down their message to something socially acceptable. Many who are pastors are not even Christians! People will stagger from sea to sea and wander from border to border searching for the word of the LORD, but they will not find it.

Our friends and neighbours ignore the Lord, saying “Nothing bad will happen to us”. Even many who go to church are simply angering the Lord because they mock him with their empty religion. Many of us have come across “Christians” like this. Who are very religious but without an ounce of grace. Maybe we were even like that before? Many who claim to follow Jesus but don’t know him. It is a desperate situation.

Israel will be shaken. The sinners will die by the sword. Justice will roll down like waters…

The Lion is roaring. What can we do? Is there any hope?

Well, yes. Because who is not afraid when a Lion is roaring? The roar strikes fear into everyone except – the Lions cubs, his family. His roar is a roar of power, of protection, of provision, of comfort.

4. The Lion shelters his cubs

Many have said that there is very little comfort to be found in Amos. In fact, a few commentators have argued that the last few verses of Amos, chapter 9:11-15 are written by a different person because they are a vision of hope and not judgement.

Well, I think they’ve misunderstood Amos. That the book exists is hope in itself! God is warning the people of the consequences of their actions. When the signpost says “Collapsed road ahead” what do you do? You turn back, of course! You change direction. If you carry on the way you were going, you crash! The warning is an act of mercy, saving you from a crash. Amos is God’s warning. Israel, you are heading for disaster. Norway, you are heading for disaster.

We also find a beautiful picture of God’s mercy in chapter 7. Am 7:1–6 (NLT) The Sovereign LORD showed me a vision. I saw him preparing to send a vast swarm of locusts over the land. This was after the king’s share had been harvested from the fields and as the main crop was coming up. 2 In my vision the locusts ate every green plant in sight. Then I said, “O Sovereign LORD, please forgive us or we will not survive, for Israel is so small.” 3 So the LORD relented from this plan. “I will not do it,” he said.

What’s going on here? Remember that Jesus tells us that the Old Testament is about Him, the whole Bible looks forward to and finds its fulfilment in Him. This little encounter between God and Amos is a picture of what Jesus does for us. It is a picture of the Trinity at work, God the Father pronouncing right judgement, and Jesus the Son pleading for us on the basis of his blood. Ro 8:34 (NLT) Who then will condemn us? No one—for Christ Jesus died for us and was raised to life for us, and he is sitting in the place of honour at God’s right hand, pleading for us.

Christ Jesus died for us and was raised to life for us, and he is sitting in the place of honour at God’s right hand - that is the hope of Amos’s message. Jesus is the King of the restored house of David in 9:11, the one who is powerful enough to bring about a new creation, where the grain and grapes will grow faster than they can be harvested, and there is such abundance that the terraced vineyards on the hills of Israel will drip with sweet wine!

Friends, you are either a lion cub – or you are prey. You are either in perfect safety – or grave danger. The warning of Amos is clear. God is not fooled by outward religion. He is not blind to our sins, our lies and cheating, our laziness and our greed, our disregard for Him and our ignoring Him.

His roar rings out! What will you do?