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We're all familiar with the importance of mood
music in such communication media as films and
television. The right music can make a good film great.
The wrong music can destroy what was otherwise an
enjoyable experience. But music can do more than just
enhance the enjoyment. It can be used in such a way that
it brings the message home in a way that words alone
could never do. If you're as old as I am you may remember
a piece by Simon & Garfunkel in the late 60s or 70s
at the height of the anti-Vietnam War protests. It was
called "7 O'clock News/Silent Night". In it
they juxtaposed the singing of Silent Night with news
bulletins about war and violence in the US at the time.
And the real horror of their message was brought home as
we listened to the peaceful music and lyrics of the
Christmas Carol while reports of fighting and murder and
violence were read in those emotionless tones that only
news readers seem capable of. |
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Well,
it's a shame that we don't have video footage of Amos
delivering this prophecy here in Amos 4 & 5, Because
it seems that he's doing a similar thing here. It's as
though he's standing in front of the temple as he speaks
and the sounds of the singers in the Temple are wafting
out, forming a background to what he has to say. Look at
4:13: "the one who forms the mountains, creates the
wind, reveals his thoughts to mortals, makes the morning
darkness, and treads on the heights of the earth-- the
LORD, the God of hosts, is his name!" They're the
words of a psalm of praise to God. Then Amos speaks and
as he's speaking we catch a further snatch of music in
v8: "The one who made the Pleiades and Orion, and
turns deep darkness into the morning, and darkens the day
into night, who calls for the waters of the sea, and
pours them out on the surface of the earth, the LORD is
his name, 9who makes destruction flash out
against the strong, so that destruction comes upon the
fortress." The people are singing praises to God,
going about their regular routine of worship, going
through the religious motions, unaware of the terrible
words that Amos has to say. |
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You see
what Amos is about to say is far removed from a song of
praise. It, in fact, is a lament. It's a funeral song. A
funeral song for the nation of Israel. "Fallen, no
more to rise, is maiden Israel; forsaken on her land,
with no one to raise her up." Israel is likened to a
young girl in the flower of her youth, who is about to be
cut off in her prime. Taken away without any opportunity
to bear offspring. Dying childless in a barren land. A
funeral for a young person is the saddest of sad
occasions isn't it? When an 80 year old dies you can at
least look back at what they've accomplished, the people
they've touched, but when a child or a teenager dies our
sadness is multiplied by the potential lost, the hopes
abandoned, the promise unfulfilled. And that's what's
about to happen to Israel. |
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What's
more it's to be a humiliating defeat. A total
catastrophe. I was watching "Australians at
War" on Wednesday night and they said there were
about 1 million Australians who fought in the 2nd World
War, of whom I think they said, about 50,000 died. But
imagine if it had been 900,000 who had died and only
100,000 had come home. Total devastation! Think what the
war memorials in our country towns would look like. Of
100 young men who'd gone to war imagine if 90 had died
and only 10 returned! That's the scale of destruction
that Amos is talking about here. The whole nation will be
reduced to tears. Look at v16: "In all the squares
there shall be wailing; and in all the streets they shall
say, "Alas! alas!" They shall call the farmers
to mourning, and those skilled in lamentation, to
wailing." Now I don't know if farmers in those days
were like farmers today, but it wouldn't surprise me. You
have to be tough to be a farmer. You have to be able to
handle set backs. Just look at the way farmers in
Australia seem to cope with year after year of drought
and then when the drought breaks, they're as often as not
faced with floods. But they plough on (if you'll forgive
the pun). You don't see them reduced to tears very often
But here even the farmers will be in tears, mourning the
death of the nation. |
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And as
Amos' words ring around the Temple Square the words of
the singers reach our ears: "the one who forms the
mountains, creates the wind, reveals his thoughts to
mortals, makes the morning darkness, and treads on the
heights of the earth-- the LORD, the God of hosts, is his
name! ... The one who made the Pleiades and Orion, and
turns deep darkness into the morning, and darkens the day
into night, who calls for the waters of the sea, and
pours them out on the surface of the earth, the LORD is
his name." The people are calling on the name of the
Lord, confident that the Lord who made the heavens and
the earth, who set the planets in their order, who makes
night turn to day and day to night, every 24 hours
without fail, will continue to bless them, his own
people, his precious possession. There's a confidence in
their mind as the people of God, that things will be
well. "God's in his heaven and all's right with the
world" seems to be their theme song. But things
aren't right with their world. |
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It may be
that Amos adds an extra stanza to their hymn as he hears
them finish: "who makes destruction flash out
against the strong, so that destruction comes upon the
fortress." "Don't be complacent" he says.
If God can put the stars in place, what's a fortress or
two? God is the one who sends the lightning to strike
where he wills. If he's established your kingdom he can
just as easily destroy it, in a flash. As an American
politician once observed, "A government that's
powerful enough to give you all you want, is also
powerful enough to take it all away again." |
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Well,
that's even more true of God. The status quo exists only
because God allows it to continue to exist. If God is
able to tame the chaos of the universe to make this a
safe world in which to live, he's just as capable of
unleashing those same energies against those who stand
against him. The history of empires is littered with
nations that chose to ignore God to their peril. Why
should anyone think that theirs is different. |
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And so
it's God who is about to act against them. "The Lord
will break out against the house of Joseph like fire
(v6)." "I will pass through the midst of you,
says the LORD (v17)." God is offended by there
behaviour. The God they sing to isn't the God they
imagine. Nor is he the God that so many today imagine. He
isn't your kindly grandfatherly God, sitting up there on
a cloud smiling kindly down at you, winking at your
misdemeanours. He isn't a softy you can wrap around your
little finger just by saying the right words or singing
the right hymns. The Bible speaks of both the kindness
and the sternness of God. Jesus warned us not to fear
those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul; rather
to fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell.
(Mat 10:28 NRSV) Now, today's liberal mindset doesn't
like talking about such things. We think it all sounds
too harsh. We'd rather talk about God's love and leave
the hard stuff out. But let me suggest that all that does
is leave us with a greater dilemma. You see if God is
just a God of love how do we deal with a world that's
full of suffering. How can we believe in a God who's all
love when the world is full of such misery. It seems to
me the answer to that question is, you can't. And the
Bible never suggests you should. Amos certainly doesn't
suggest that. But then the question of suffering isn't a
problem for Amos. His only problem is how long it'll be
before God punishes those who cause suffering in the
world. The only question he has is how come God has been
so patient with his people when they've ignored him for
so long. |
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Amos is
in no doubt that love is an important attribute of God.
We saw that last time and we'll see it later in this
passage, but equally important is God's desire for
righteousness. |
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You see,
the suffering that Amos sees is suffering experienced by
the poor and powerless. It's suffering inflicted on them
by the rich and powerful. Look at the litany of
accusations and complaints he raises: |
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"7you
that turn justice to wormwood, and bring righteousness to
the ground!" What they call justice would make you
sick. Righteousness is trampled upon. "10They
hate the one who reproves in the gate, and they abhor the
one who speaks the truth. 11Therefore because
you trample on the poor and take from them levies of
grain, you have built houses of hewn stone, but you shall
not live in them; you have planted pleasant vineyards,
but you shall not drink their wine." If you wanted
justice in Amos' day you went to the elders who sat in
the city gate and presented your case to them. But what's
happened? If one of the elders gives a judgement that
reproves a wrongdoer, he gets frowned upon by his peers,
that is by the other rich and powerful elders. If someone
speaks the truth he earns their hatred. They justify
their oppression of the poor by levying taxes of grain,
so it sounds above board. They might even give them the
odd one-off grant of $300 each to make them feel better,
but in the end all they're doing is exploiting them to
their own advantage. |
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"12For
I know how many are your transgressions, and how great
are your sins-- you who afflict the righteous, who take a
bribe, and push aside the needy in the gate. 13Therefore
the prudent will keep silent in such a time; for it is an
evil time." Political expediency takes precedence
over justice. The rich, those who can afford a bribe get
away with murder, while the needy are punished or simply
excluded from the courts. Of course it's often more
expedient to keep quiet isn't it? If you're only just
keeping your head above water it's dangerous to make
waves. Let sleeping dogs lie. No-one likes a dobber. We
all learn these lessons early on don't we? And so
morality goes out the window, blown by the winds of
pragmatism and expediency. |
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The
trouble is, this has got to such a stage of structural
evil that it seems like there's no solution. Yet that's
the point at which God's love and mercy enters in. Amos
has a remedy for the ills of Israel, terminal as they may
seem. In fact it's a threefold remedy. |
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A
personal encounter with God |
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First, he
says: "thus says the LORD to the house of Israel:
Seek me and live." The first step towards redeeming
their situation is to turn to God. To seek his face. He
says: "Don't seek Bethel, and do not enter into
Gilgal or cross over to Beersheba;" These were the 3
shrines that the Northern kingdom had adopted for their
worship of God when they separated from Judah. |
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So what's
he saying? What's wrong with going to church if you want
to seek God? Well, the trouble was that their worship had
become a thing of ritual and ceremony, of social
respectability and religious habit. A 17th century
Anglican Bishop once remarked "The nearer to Church
the further from God." Their religion had
degenerated into something of form without substance.
They went through the motions but their hearts weren't
changed. They thought that if they were in God's house
they were safe, but when God breaks out against the house
of Joseph like fire, "it will devour Bethel, with no
one to quench it." The sacred shrines will be swept
away with the rest of the nation. The fire of God's wrath
will be unquenchable. |
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What they
need to do is to seek the face of the Lord. They need to
confront themselves with the holiness of God. They need
to confront their own unworthiness, their own failure to
obey God. And then comes the second step: |
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Repent |
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"14Seek
good and not evil, that you may live." They need to
turn away from their evil deeds, evil attitudes and seek
to do good. They need a change of heart. This is
something that some of us have difficulty with at times.
Some people, I think, get confused about repentance. They
equate it with being sorry for the consequences of their
actions, or shame at the way people now think of them, or
even being afraid of punishment. But genuine repentance
involves a change of mind. It involves turning away from
ourselves to God: "seek me and live" and
turning towards godly behaviour: "14Seek
good and not evil." So it's both God-centred and
it's active. It affects the will. See how he repeats it
in the negative: "15Hate evil and love
good." There's a change of heart involved. We're to
adopt the mindset of God, the moral passion that God has,
to hate all that is evil and to love that which is good.
Finally, we're to |
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Humbly
ask for God's Grace. |
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"15It
may be that the LORD, the God of hosts, will be gracious
to the remnant of Joseph." Notice that "It may
be." There's no room here for complacency is there?
There's no place for those who blithely appear at the
temple on the allotted days and simply expect God to show
mercy. There's no room for those who think that simply
coming to communion week after week will bring salvation.
God is looking for a humble heart, a humble dependence on
him, on his mercy and grace, not on a presumptuous
mindset that expects mercy as a right. God is sovereign
and will show mercy on those to whom he chooses. That's
the essential nature of grace and mercy isn't it? It's
unmerited, freely given, undeserved. Yet at the same time
we have Jesus' promise in John 6:37: (John 6:37 NRSV)
"anyone who comes to me I will never drive
away;" |
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God
invites us to come to him in humble dependence, to seek
him and live. He makes us an offer of mercy even as the
funeral march is playing in the background. On the day of
Pentecost the people of Jerusalem cried out in response
to Peter's proclamation of the gospel "What shall we
do?" And what did he say? "Repent, and be
baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ so
that your sins may be forgiven; and you will receive the
gift of the Holy Spirit." The message hasn't changed
has it? Seek the Lord and live. Repent and believe the
gospel. Be baptised in the name of Jesus Christ so that
your sins may be forgiven. A personal encounter with God,
repentance of sins and humbly asking for his grace and
forgiveness. |
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This is
the gospel of the Lord. |
