Amos 6
Amos 6
Sermon
I want to commend you and encourage you as we continue our study of the book of Amos. I realize that it is not always easy to listen to the judgments directed to God’s people. But we would also be remiss to avoid these teachings and ignore God’s warnings. It is much better to be in the know. We need to hear the whole counsel of God. And to know Him more fully we must also understand His righteousness, justice, and holiness. We also realize that because the Bible emphasizes these attributes, it doesn’t in any way minimize grace. In fact, it does just the opposite. When we gain a better understanding of how holy God is, we also better understand the grace that saves us. When we de-emphasize his holiness and justice, we cheapen grace.
Last week Pastor Doug preached from Amos 5 and likened it to a love letter from God to Israel. It helped us to identify with the sadness that God must feel toward those He loves who have turned away from Him. Sometimes with broken relationships, the reasons for dissolution are often unsubstantiated or are weak at best. The Lord God, however, had every reason to chastise His children Israel. He had been with them every step of the way. He called them from the line of Abraham and multiplied them, protected them from harm, provided their every need, delivered them from the oppressive Egyptians, lead them through the wilderness with a cloud and a pillar of fire. He loved them so much that He gave them the Ten Commandments, so that they could better understand their God and express their love and obedience to Him. So as we look at this next chapter, I want to begin with an article I read from the turn of the last century that sets the stage for our text. It is entitled:
Town Ignored Signs of Impending Disaster
In 1903, a mountain fell on a town in the Canadian Rockies. The town of Frank, Alberta, was buried under 100 million tons of limestone. At least 76 men, women, and children were killed.
It was the rich seams of coal in Turtle Mountain that caused people to build a town under its shadow. The desire for coal led residents to ignore the regular tremors in the rocks above them. In fact, miners counted on the tremors to knock loose seams of coal and make their work easier. Days before the disaster, the mine had become "virtually self-operating in that all the miners had to do was shovel up coal as it fell from the ceiling."
Even the local Blackfoot nation did not like to go near the mountain, referring to it as "the mountain that walks." But the town ignored all these warnings. Just after 4:00 a.m., April 29, 1903, an enormous piece of Turtle Mountain, 3,000 feet long and 500 feet thick, broke off and tumbled into the valley below.
The exact number of dead will never be known. Of the 76 known dead, only 12 bodies were ever recovered.
And so it was with the nation of Israel. They heard the warnings from the prophets, but remained complacent and unrepentant.
Let’s pray as we look to the text. PRAY. As I read the chapter, listen for the tone and obvious sarcasm from the Lord. READ CHAPTER.
And so chapter 6 continues the indictments against Israel and serves as the basis for punishment. The first section could be entitled “The First Shall Be First.”
Verse 1 indicates that this woe is directed to the complacent, the leaders, “the first”. You see, at this time, Israel was experiencing great power, wealth, and (as we will find out) false security. He mentions those at ease in Zion and secure in the mountain of Samaria. These were the foremost cities in the nation. These were the political centers and centers of worship for the nation. And I think that intensifies the sarcasm here.
They were from the foremost of nations, you know! Well, yes and no. True, God did call them to be a great nation. 2 Samuel 7:23 reads, “And who is like your people Israel, the one nation on earth whom God went to redeem to be his people, making himself a name and doing for them great and awesome things by driving out before your people, whom you redeemed for yourself from Egypt, a nation and its gods?” And Exodus 19 reads, “Now therefore, if you will indeed obey my voice and keep my covenant, you shall be my treasured possession among all peoples, for all the earth is mine”. Well, they got at least part of that right. They just forgot the conditional element. God said, “if you will obey my voice and keep my covenant”. Both of which they were apparently not doing.
And even more important is that the “house” or “family” of Israel came to them. They were the influencers of the nation. They were the examples for the rest of the people. And we know that those who are leaders are called to a greater level of responsibility.
Well, let’s move on. It gets better. God invites the people to look at these other nations – Calneh, Hamath, Gath. At one time they too thought themselves to be great. However, they were all recently conquered. They served as an example of the follies of self-sufficiency, complacency, and arrogance.
The leaders of Israel had the mindset that dismissed or at least delayed any sense of a day of calamity or judgment. The result was just the opposite. In so doing they invoked the judgment of God. In Israel times were good. And when times are good, do we seek God with the same fervor as in the bad times? If we’re honest, we would admit that in times of adversity we cry out to God more frequently and with more intensity. We say, “Lord I will do whatever you say… forgive me for this and that…only hear my prayer!
But do we turn to Him as often in the good times.? Do we thank Him for His provisions, His love and grace, His mercy… Or do we think (but probably not vocalize): “Look what I have accomplished: nice house, nice car, nice vacation spot, lots of toys for the kids…” God is the giver of ALL that we have! He gets the credit. And as Israel finds out, He can take it all away.
Judgment is coming for the nation of Israel. The Lord is going to cause a foreign nation to uproot and destroy Israel. In essence, God is coming to judge the nation. He says “shape up or ship out” – literally. Will they be ready when He comes? Well, we already know that they will not.
We also know from the New Testament that there is also a future coming of the Lord Jesus Christ. And my question is: what will that day look like for you? Do you view that day with apprehension? Do you view it as far off – like Israel? No one knows but the Father when it is. But…, He could come at any time. And we need to live our lives with that perspective. That shouldn’t be a frightening thought. It should be comforting. If we are “obeying His voice and keeping His commands” we should joyfully anticipate His return. We can only do that if we have trusted in Christ for His salvation. If you don’t know that you are ready, please talk to someone after the service.
Amos continues with God’s indictments against His people. Israel has become so self-sufficient, complacent, and arrogant they have no concern for anything else but their own pleasure. They lie around on beds inlaid with ivory and sprawl on their couches. I think you’ll like the definition I got for the word that is translated “sprawling.” It is a stupor of satiation and drunkenness, with arms and legs hanging over the side. Creates quite a picture, doesn’t it? I’ve got a vision of some guy in his white t-shirt and blue jeans, messy hair, unshaven, holding a bottle of Jack Daniels, sprawled out on the couch! Is that what God has called his people to?
They are eating the choicest meats. One commentator suggests that many Israelites may only have eaten meat a few times a year – and that at the festivals. Yet they are eating the choicest meats regularly. Verse 6 tells us that they drank wine by the bowlfuls and anointed themselves with the finest oils. What God had graciously provided for them, they were squandering and participating in gluttony.
Proverbs 23:20 says, “Be not among drunkards or among gluttonous eaters of meat”. I also found something interesting. Stubbornness and rebelliousness are closely linked with drunkenness and gluttony. Check out the connection in Deuteronomy 21:18-21. It reads, “If a man has a stubborn and rebellious son who will not obey the voice of his father or the voice of his mother, and, though they discipline him, will not listen to them, then his father and his mother shall take hold of him and bring him out to the elders of his city at the gate of the place where he lives, and they shall say to the elders of his city, ‘This our son is stubborn and rebellious; he will not obey our voice; he is a glutton and a drunkard.’ Then all the men of the city shall stone him to death with stones. So you shall purge the evil from your midst, and all Israel shall hear, and fear.”
Does this sound familiar? They were obviously rebellious and disobedient to God’s warning and admonition. They said in essence, “We are going to do what we want to do. We don’t care what you say!”
Their complacency is also evident. They sat around singing and composing songs. You might say, “Well, now that doesn’t sound so bad. David composed songs.” But a closer look tells you that they composed songs for themselves. Whereas David wrote songs praising God, they wrote for their own gratification. And I think that the real tragedy is they wrote despite God’s anger with them.
They drank wine by the bowlfuls and anointed themselves with the finest oils. YET, they did not grieve over their own destructive fate. Could they really be so arrogant and complacent? Amos pronounces a future judgment on the nation, and they brush it off. I think many today approach God in a similar manner. If they do believe in God, they feel as though He can’t be a wrathful God. He is a God of love. Oh He is. But He is also a holy God who has called us to live holy lives. Let me repeat that. Our God is a holy God who, out of his love, called us to live holy lives. Paul exhorts us to “walk in a manner worthy of the calling with which you have been called” in Ephesians 4 and to be imitators of God as beloved children in chapter 5. We are to imitate or mimic a holy God. I don’t see God lying on the couch in a drunken stupor. I don’t see a God who is complacent or apathetic. Rather, He is preoccupied with His glory. And the Israelites were not!
In verse 12 Amos includes pictures of absurdity to demonstrate the errors of their ways. He portrays horses running on rocks or oxen plowing them. The leaders had subverted the very attributes of God into something undesirable. They also glorified themselves in their military defeats in verse 13.
Verse 7 - In light of these indictments, those who are first, the leaders, would now “lead” the people into exile. The First Shall Be First!! And the carousing would end.
It’s hard enough to think that our society does not understand who God is. But then to try and figure out what is wrong with the nation of Israel is even more difficult. They had seen physically the blessings that come from following the Lord, and also the judgments from their disobedience. And so to have this same God declare that He loathes their arrogance and detests their citadels… Bible study method tells you that when you study the text, one of the things you look for is repetition. If you look at the first line in verse 8, you notice that God’s name is repeated several times. In fact the ESV renders the phrase, “The Lord God has sworn by himself, declares the Lord, the God of hosts”. It’s like He’s saying, “Hello, remember me? the God of the universe? you know created you, called you to be my very people, delivered you from oppression, wiped out all your enemies? Remember me?” So to think that this God detests something, why would they not change? (PAUSE)Why don’t we change? (PAUSE) We know that there are things in our lives that God detests. Ouch!! Have we forgotten who our God is??
Amos gives us a little story, a little narrative, to communicate what this looks like. READ vv. 9-11. The way I understand it is: most would die. It appears there will be a remnant that is spared – the one in the house. And that one will be so shaken as to not invoke the name of the Lord. It also appears as though rich and poor will be destroyed. Neither exempt. Though the rich are the main targets of the indictments, the poor are also left without excuse.
In verse 14, the Lord tells the Israelites how he will destroy them and to what extent. He will use a foreign nation to afflict them. They would come from the north (Hamath) and proceed to the south (Arabah). Total destruction.
It really is a sad tale of complacency on the part of Israel. They were warned by the prophet Amos regarding the pending doom – judgment that they themselves were invoking. They had the example of what happened to the neighboring nations and an illustration of what the pending destruction would look like. What more did they need?
And those who were the notables or distinguished in the nation were the first to go into exile. They influenced the rest to follow in their wicked ways.
You know we too have an opportunity to influence people. Whether you know it or not, people are watching you. There are people in your neighborhood, in your workplace, in your grocery store, and in your families who are watching. They may know that you call yourself “Christian” and are watching to see if your faith is real. How does that make you feel? Does it make you cringe?
But it really is an opportunity for you to influence those around you. Matthew 5 states that, “You are the salt of the earth, but if salt has lost its taste, how shall its saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trampled under people’s feet. You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden. Nor do people light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a stand, and it gives light to all in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.”
Perhaps there are some things in your life that are hindering your witness for Christ. Maybe you too have become complacent. You have put off “the day of His return”. You are more concerned with earthly pleasure and pursuits than with God’s glory.
Or maybe you are hiding the light. People may not know that you are a Christian. You are hiding the light under a basket. It can be intimidating at times, I know. Fear can be debilitating. Maybe you’re afraid of playing the hypocrite. Just because you are Christian doesn’t mean you will not make mistakes. But what you do with those mistakes will speak volumes to those around you. They will also see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven.
I know what it’s like to be convicted by God’s Word. And I know it’s easy to walk away from it and go on with life. I want to encourage you to act upon it and not harden your hearts like the Israelites often did. Conviction is a good thing! It means that we are in tune with God and He cares enough to speak to us and help us grow in godliness. Let’s pray.
PRAY