Amos 3:1-15
It’s always a challenge preaching from the Old Testament because it often seems so far removed from our view of God as gentle Jesus meek and mild. But we must allow the Bible to change us, not change the Bible by our preconceived ideas! One of the ways we do this is simply not reading parts of the Bible we don’t like! For example, in the Bible study we’ve been battling through Romans 9, allowing God’s Word to stretch our mind and unlock great truths like diamonds: that God is sovereign, that he is merciful, that his mercy is based on his mercy, not our goodness! That’s the gospel! Not that we are good or better than others or will show God in the future through our obedience that we are worthy of salvation. No, God saves for his own purposes, for his own glory. And that is a good thing – because otherwise salvation would be based on performance (being good enough for God) rather than grace (being forgiven even though we’re not good enough).
This also means that we can never be arrogant about being Christians, or look down on other people who are not Christians. We’re saved by grace, by God’s will, not our own will.
Why am I talking about Romans and not Amos? Well, firstly to encourage you to decide to set aside time for the midweek Bible study. You’ve got 2 weeks to get that right: we start again on 3 April! But secondly because Amos 3 and Romans 9 both challenge us with the same truth: God is sovereign, he is merciful, and his mercy is based on his mercy, not our performance (thankfully!).
In Amos we come face to face with a holy God, who has purposes which are not the same as ours, and ways of doing things that aren’t necessarily what we would do.
As I was reading through ch 3 I found three verses which really “rattled my cage” –challenged me with my understanding of God.
2 From among all the families on the earth, I have been intimate with you alone. That is why I must punish you for all your sins.
6 (the point of all the rhetorical questions in v3-6) Does disaster come to a city unless the Lord has planned it?
12 This is what the Lord says: “A shepherd who tries to rescue a sheep from a lion’s mouth will recover only two legs or a piece of an ear. So it will be for the Israelites in Samaria lying on luxurious beds, and for the people of Damascus reclining on couches.
These are troubling verses – but it‘s these verses that give us the outline for chapter 3 of Amos:
1. God is personal (v2)
2. God will punish sin (v2 and v6)
3. God is merciful (v6 and v12)
The first point is the longest, but also the most important.
1. God is personal
1 Listen to this message that the Lord has spoken against you, O people of Israel and Judah—against the entire family I rescued from Egypt: 2 “From among all the families on the earth, I have been intimate with you alone. That is why I must punish you for all your sins.”
Listen to this message, says Amos. A message, not from Amos, but from the LORD. The Lord who roars from Zion and thunders from Jerusalem. “This is what the Lord says” is repeated 11 times in the first 2 chapters. Who is this Lord? Note the word there is in small capital letters – it is the letters YHWH, often pronounced Yahweh, which is the personal name of God, the God of Israel.
And he is the God who speaks. Speaking is how we get to know people well. Can you imagine a marriage without conversation – where the husband and wife never share with each other their deepest longings, their hidden secrets, the deep things of the heart?
Well, sadly, you probably can! In fact, it’s probably the norm here – people may be living together like husband and wife, but living two separate lives. My money, your money; my kids, you kids; my holiday, your holiday; my dreams, your dreams. No unity, no oneness, just a partnership that’s convenient as long as it works, and when it isn’t you just walk out the door.
But no, we’re designed to be in relationship, designed to be with another, deeply intimate. And that person is our Lord God Almighty. And when that relationship is in place, it sets you free to be intimate with others, especially your wife (or husband).
That’s why Debby and I always say that the secret to a great marriage is Jesus. It’s loving Him more than each other. Only He can satisfy the deepest longings of your soul – which stops you trying to get from your spouse (husband or wife) what you should get from God! This is a sin of idolatry: trying to get from your spouse what you should get from God: security, fulfilment, happiness. That will break your marriage. Your husband is not God! Your wife is not God (although she may look like a goddess, like mine :-) ). Jesus is your first spouse, your source of comfort and security and strength and fulfilment.
Sin, whether it’s idolatry, or simply selfishness: sin kills our intimacy. We are cut off from God, and so cut off from each other. Intimacy is risky – we reveal ourselves and we become vulnerable – we can be hurt. All of us have experienced being let down by others. We’ve revealed something of ourselves and been betrayed – the secret we told them in confidence is spread around, the weak spot only they know about is suddenly used against us. The one we thought we could trust suddenly speaks out against us – or doesn’t speak out, leaving us on our own. It hurts when people betray us. So we close ourselves off, try to protect ourselves.
In a world of selfish sinners it is a dangerous thing to expose yourself to another. As an aside that’s why you get married FIRST, THEN have sex is there – to protect us. Commitment before exposure. Promise before reward! And that’s why it hurts so deep when you “break up”. Sexually you are one, you’ve been intimate. Sexual intercourse is a huge expression of vulnerability – you are physically and emotionally naked with someone else. And now you are torn apart. It wounds you deeply. It must do!
And that is what we have done with God. The one who has been intimate with us, we have rejected. That’s what’s going on in verse 1&2 O people of Israel and Judah—against the entire family I rescued from Egypt: 2 “From among all the families on the earth, I have been intimate with you alone. That is why I must punish you for all your sins.
Israel is often described in the Bible like an unfaithful wife. Off she goes down the street, throwing herself at any man who happens to come by, prostituting herself – intimate with anyone else except her husband. And, as we saw over the last few weeks, that’s us too: like an unfaithful spouse, ignoring God, ignoring his words, loving evil and not Him. Doing what he has told us not to do. He is the faithful lover, we are the adulterer. God is intimate, vulnerable – and we have thrown it back in his face.
We are sinners, rebels against God, spreading a thin layer of spirituality over our sin and expecting God to be fooled! How often do we try to conceal our sins by smearing a small layer of religious devotion over it and think God will be pleased. Sometimes we hide our sin behind “grace” – but grace is not given so you can live your own life then pretend to serve God on Sundays. No, grace is given so you can stop pretending to be good enough, so you can come to church with your sins and confess them, not hide them.
When you marry someone, you marry all of them, not just a leg or an arm! When you are married you promise to live life, all of life, with them as your husband or wife. It is full 100% commitment. And that includes their sins. For better or worse! You promise. And God is like that good husband who sticks by his wife no matter what. He is personal and intimate with us – and therefore deserves and demands ALL of us. Not a little bit on a Sunday. All that we have, all that we are belongs to him.
He is the God who speaks. We must listen.
He is intimate with us, what a privilege. We cannot throw that back in his face. 2 From among all the families on the earth, I have been intimate with you alone.
God is personal.
2. God will punish sin
2 “From among all the families on the earth, I have been intimate with you alone. That is why I must punish you for all your sins.”
Sin is not primarily naughtiness – doing wrong things. The heart of sin is revealed in this verse: I have been intimate with you alone. That is why I must punish you for all your sins.
It is the broken relationship between us and God. That is the heart of sin: the upraised rebellious fist against our true King. The wife prostituting herself.
Now this kind of verse might be weird for those of us raised on a diet of gentle Jesus meek and mild, and “be good and Jesus will love you”. What a load of unbiblical rubbish. God reveals Himself in the Bible to be a HOLY GOD. And his goal for us is holiness. To be like Him. Not primarily happiness, not comfort, not an easy life – but holiness. Reflecting back to him his glory. Living for Him. Obedient to him. Living as his beloved children.
And our unholiness will be punished. It is against the laws of the universe. It doesn’t fit. It leads to deep unhappiness, to verse 10 “My people have forgotten how to do right,” says the Lord. “Their fortresses are filled with wealth taken by theft and violence.
The fruit of unholiness. The result of sin.
And because God loves us, because we are his, he will punish us. How? He will send disaster upon the city.
6 Does disaster come to a city unless the Lord has planned it? 7 Indeed, the Sovereign Lord never does anything until he reveals his plans to his servants the prophets. 8 The lion has roared— so who isn’t frightened? The Sovereign Lord has spoken— so who can refuse to proclaim his message?
Disaster strikes! Why? To wake us up to the eternal danger we face. We, like Israel, have forgotten to do what is right. The Lord is calling witnesses to observe the chaos and oppression in our lives, in our thoughts, in our relationships. That which we seek to keep hidden, to keep out of sight - that deep longing or knowledge that things are not as they should be.
As Morpheus says to Neo in the Matrix “Let me tell you why you're here. You're here because you know something. What you know you can't explain, but you feel it. You've felt it your entire life, that there's something wrong with the world. You don't know what it is, but it's there, like a splinter in your mind, driving you mad. It is this feeling that has brought you to me.”
That feeling drives us to God. That knowledge that something is wrong with the world, something is broken, this is not the way things should be. We were designed for intimacy with our God. Instead we have a broken relationship with God.
So the lion is roars, loud enough for us to hear! Will we listen? Disaster strikes. Will we understand?
I remember once walking with my best friend Grant when I was a teenager. Suddenly he stepped into the road to cross – but what he didn’t see was a car that had just come speeding around the corner (he didn’t see it because he had turned to talk to me). I lurched forward and grabbed him quite roughly and flung him out of the way. I saw his facial expressions – pain, anger, and then shock as the car sped past where he had just been standing, and finally relief and gratitude. “You saved my life!” he said. Probably not – I think the car had seen him. But maybe not. The point of this little story is that the pain of me grabbing him and throwing him to the ground was so worth it compared to being smashed by a car!
CS Lewis says “Pain is God’s megaphone to a deaf generation.” Sometimes we need to be knocked on to our backs before we look up and see reality. And that case pain is a good thing.
As Christians, we can understand pain, we understand suffering. It has a meaning and a purpose. v6 Does disaster come to a city unless the Lord has planned it?
50 years after Amos preached, Israel was carried off into exile. “Why?” they would have cried. Through Amos they could understand. They could understand that they had broken faith with God. They had been an unfaithful wife. They could understand the right judgment of God, and know what to do! Cry out to Him for mercy. Acknowledge their sins and seek mercy from God.
As Christians we understand. This world we live in is broken – and its brokenness drives us to Jesus. Pain in our own lives drives us to Jesus, to make us more like him.
In eternal terms, we will be like my friend Grant, blinking in shock and gratitude saying “you saved my life”
God will punish sins because
3. God is merciful
12 This is what the Lord says: “A shepherd who tries to rescue a sheep from a lion’s mouth will recover only two legs or a piece of an ear. So it will be for the Israelites in Samaria lying on luxurious beds, and for the people of Damascus reclining on couches. 13 “Now listen to this, and announce it throughout all Israel,” says the Lord, the Lord God of Heaven’s Armies. 14 “On the very day I punish Israel for its sins, I will destroy the pagan altars at Bethel (a city in Israel). The horns of the altar will be cut off and fall to the ground. 15 And I will destroy the beautiful homes of the wealthy— their winter mansions and their summer houses, too— all their palaces filled with ivory,” says the Lord.
I really like these verses- because two things are going on at the same time. Firstly evil is destroyed: winter mansions and summer houses built on slavery and corruption (from chapter 2), the poor being sued by the rich so that they can fill their palaces with ivory. They are getting destroyed. Amos is saying, like General Maximus in Gladiator saying to the evil Emperor Commodus “The time for honouring yourself will soon be over.”
The beautiful houses of the wealthy will be destroyed. The pagan altars at Bethel will be cut off and fall to the ground. Their false religion will be exposed and will be no more. All the evil done throughout the centuries in the name of “God” – all this will be revealed and cut off, punished.
The second thing is, as in every pronouncement of judgement in the Bible, there is always hope. Always a remnant who will be saved 12 A shepherd who tries to rescue a sheep from a lion’s mouth will recover only two legs or a piece of an ear. So it will be for the Israelites in Samaria lying on luxurious beds, and for the people of Damascus reclining on couches.
Oh, they don’t deserve saving, lying on their beds of luxury. But some will be saved. Not because they deserve it, but because it is the nature of God to show mercy to sinful people. He came personally, intimately, to pay the price for our sin on the Cross. Jesus’ blood covers us so that we can be part of the remnant rescued from the judgement to come. He knows we are evil, and yet reveals himself to us, is intimate with us, as a father and a husband to us, and ultimately dies for us, showing his love.
What are we to do? In the words of Amos chapter 5 (in two weeks time) “SEEK ME AND LIVE!” says the Lord God Almighty.
God is personal.
God will punish sin.
God is merciful.
Praise God!
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