We’re in the
third week of our sermon series “Who Are These Guys?”, looking at the minor
prophets. Today, we look at the prophet
Amos.
From what I’ve read, Amos lived in about the eighth
century B. C. He did not have any
particular religious background. He was
Jewish, of course, but he was not a rabbi or a scholar or anything like
that. Amos was what today we’d probably
call a farmer-rancher. He bred sheep and
he owned some orchards. He was chosen by
God—we don’t know why—to deliver a message to the people of Israel. And after he delivers it, he goes back to his
old life again.
You may have noticed, in the first two installments of
this sermon series, that the message that the Minor Prophets have been
delivering is not a very pleasant one.
It’s a message about how Israel has turned away from God, that God is
not happy about that, and that God is going to do something about it. And Amos’ message fits right in with that.
What was going on here is that Israel thought of itself
as God’s chosen people. And of course,
that’s right. Israel was God’s chosen
people. That was a promise that went
back to the days of Abraham. But the
thing is that Israel had forgotten what the promise actually was. The promise was that Israel would worship
God, would trust God, and would do what God told them to do. If they did that, God would take care of them
and protect them. As God tells the
people several times, “I will take you as my own people, and I will be your
God.”
The people still wanted God to take care of them and
protect them. But they did not want to
worship God any more. They did not want
to trust God any more. And they
certainly did not want to do what God told them to do. The first several chapters of the book of
Amos go into a lot of detail about this.
They talk about how Israel has abandoned God and is now following other
gods.
Israel had also forgotten how they came to be God’s
chosen people. It was not because of
anything they’d done. It’s not something
Israel earned. As far as we know, at
least, God did not hold a competition among all the various nations and races,
with the winner getting special status as God’s chosen people. In fact, we are never told why God chose
Israel. We’re told God loved the people
of Israel, but we’re never really told why.
We’re just told that God did. We
assume God had reasons, and since they’re God’s reasons we assume they’re good
reasons, but we don’t really have any idea what they are. All we know is that God chose them, for
whatever reason.
But Israel had forgotten that. Israel had come to think they were better
than the other nations and races. Israel
had come to think that it was special, that they had earned this status as
God’s chosen people because they were so great.
In fact, they took it farther than that.
They seemed to think that, because they were God’s chosen people, they
could do pretty much anything they wanted to do. They broke their promise to worship and obey
God, but they thought God still owed it to them to keep the promise to take
care of them and protect them.
In the first several chapters of the book of Amos, God
makes it clear in no uncertain terms that it does not work that way. God tells them they’re not special. God says “Are not you Israelites the same to
me as the Cushites?” In other words,
Israel, there’s nothing special about you.
God says I’m the one who made you special. God says I can take you down just as easily
as I raised you up. And I’m going to.
Listen again to what we read: ““Strike the tops of the pillar so that the
thresholds shake. Bring them down on the heads of
all the people; those who are left I will kill with the sword. Not one will get away, none will escape…I
will keep my eye on them for harm and not for good…Surely the eyes of the
Sovereign Lord are on the sinful kingdom.
I will destroy it from the face of the earth.”
There’s a lot more of that in Amos. In fact, that’s the contents of almost the
entire book of Amos: describing Israel’s
sins and how Israel is going to be punished and brought down. But then, in the last five verses—not the
last five chapters, but just the last five verses—of the book of Amos, we read
this: “’Yet I will not totally destroy
the descendants of Jacob,’ declares the Lord…”I will bring my people Israel
back from exile. 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.’”
That’s pretty amazing, don’t you think? God, speaking through Amos, has gone on for
verse after verse, chapter after chapter, page after page, going on and on
about how Israel has sinned and is going to have to take the consequences for
that, how Israel is going to be destroyed for its sins. And then, at the end of the book, God says
that eventually Israel will be restored.
The consequences for Israel’s sins are going to be hard for them to deal
with, and they’ll have to deal with them for a long time, but they’re not going
to last forever. In the end, there’s
still God. And that means that in the
end, there’s still hope, hope for a better future.
And I think, really, that’s the message to take out of
the book of Amos. Because we can look at
the world, and we can see a lot of things that are not right. And we can look around us, right where we
are, and see a lot of things that are not right. And we can look at our families and see a lot
of things that are not right. And we can
look at ourselves and see a lot of things that are not right, too.
There are so many times we ignore God. We ignore doing what God wants us to do. And yet, we still want God to take care of us
and protect us. Not only do we want
that, we demand it. When it feels like
God is not taking care of us, we get angry with God. We think God must be falling down on the job. In fact, sometimes we conclude that God does
not even exist. I mean, taking care of
us and protecting us is God’s job, right?
So if God’s not doing that, then God must not be there.
When we ignore God, when we ignore doing what God wants
us to do, there are consequences for that.
There are consequences for us just as much as there were for the people
of Israel in Amos’ time. And by the way,
when I talk about ignoring God, don’t think I’m talking about somebody else
here. I’m taking about each one of us. I’m talking about you. And I’m talking about me. We all do this. Most of us do it every single day. And we—you and I—have to deal with the
consequences of that. That’s why,
sometimes, we have to go through some of the things we go through. It’s not because God is falling down on the
job. It’s because you and I have to deal
with the consequences of our actions.
And, sometimes, the consequences of our inaction.
Sometimes those consequences are hard for us to deal
with. Sometimes we have to deal with
them for a long time. But they’re not
going to last forever. Because, after
all of that, in the end, there’s still God.
Just as there was in Amos’ time, in the end, there’s still God. And that means that in the end, there’s still
hope. Hope for a better future. A better future for you. And a better future for me.
God chose the people of Israel. And through the coming of Jesus Christ,
through Jesus’ death and resurrection, God chose all of us, if we only believe
in Jesus as our Savior. That means that
God chose you. And God chose me.
God did not choose us because of who we are. We did not earn our status as God’s children
because we’re so great. God did not hold
some sort of competition that we won.
God chose us—all of us—for one reason and one reason only. God chose us because God loves us. We’re not told why. We’re just told that God does.
That’s pretty amazing, too, don’t you think? After all our sins, God still loves us. We still have to deal with the consequences
of our actions and inaction, but those consequences won’t last forever. In the end, there’s still God. And God loves us. And that means that in the end, there’s still
hope. And there always will be.
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